Scattered Thoughts . . .

A bout a week ago, I really screwed up. For over six decades, I've been almost religiously and ridiculously protecting my hands and fingers at all cost because I am a classical pianist.  No matter what activity I was doing over all these six decades, protecting my hands and fingers was always foremost in my thoughts. For at least five decades, I've been a carpenter too so I've always been extra cautious around all tools especially power tools.  I've built homes and everything associated with homes and only suffered relatively minor injuries.   The worst injury to my hands (until last week) was a drywall injury.  I was cutting drywall in freezing temperatures...  work gloves on my hands...  and accidentally severed the top of my left thumb with the utility knife...  my gloved hand had my thumb placed on the steel straight edge, unfortunately, slightly over the straight edge and in the path of the cut..  I only cut part of the nail and some fle...

This morning was my turn for the hospital.   Yesterday, I had disassembled our icemaker because it was frosted-over and no longer making any ice. I defrosted all the ice/frost... and started assembling everything again... as I was pushing the icemaker upward with my thumb with as much force as I could muster to get it to clip back into place, my thumb suddenly popped loudly and bent completely backward just like a fingernail does at times...  That hurt a bit but the thought of my thumb bending completely backward at the top joint gave me the heebie-jeebies more than anything!   I continued assembling the icemaker... finished... turned it back on... and then took a closer look at my swollen thumb... I somehow got my thumb back into place but it was painful and a bit swollen. I figured I would let it go for now and see how it heals since it was not bruised yet nor was it looking like a balloon.  By last night, my whole hand was swollen so I knew I'd ...