Have I mentioned how weird my thumbs are? Well ...

Herman is off dropping Laney off for college at BYU-Idaho this week, and I have found that when Herman is out of town I always get a hankering to fix things around the house, some project to help pass the time and make me feel accomplished, I guess. This time has been no different. What did I decide to do? Tackle the terribly cluttered and eternally trashed Boys Room with an intense shock and awe campaign. I was cleaning and purging and rearranging. When the boys got home from school they would not be able to recognize that shining beacon of a room that would greet them. Well, that was my plan anyway. It turns out that what I got instead was a mini adventure in the middle of my day.

Here's the story ...

I decided that I would change the light in the boys' room. Right now they have a ceiling fan, but I decided to change that light and make it a simple light fixture. Working with electricity always freaks me out a bit, but I feel a huge sense of accomplishment when I am able to conquer that fear and change lights or outlets. This should have been a simple task ... take out the ceiling fan and install the light. No big deal. Normally I just grab a chair and get to work, but today I decided that it would be a ton easier if I just grabbed a ladder and didn't have to reach up so much. We have an excellent step ladder for this. I'm not sure why I didn't grab that one. Instead I decided to use a multi-position ladder that was sitting right outside our garage. Do you know what this type of ladder is? These are ladders that have tab-like things on the side that can be used to adjust the ladder, making it taller or shorter, bending it at multiple angles.

Like this one.

It can be a neat sort of ladder to have around the house ... usually.

I headed outside to grab it and found that it was extended a little higher than I wanted it to be. No big deal. I'd just pull out the tabs, adjust the height, and go on my merry way. Except when I tried to do it I found one of the tabs to be stuck. I could pull it out, but it took some arm muscle to do it. I had released one side of the ladder and began pulling the other tab with all the strength I had. I wasn't going to let a little lack of give in this tab prevent me from getting my project completed. So I pulled. And pulled. And pulled.

Well, that side of the ladder finally collapsed ... right onto my right thumb. Arg! Or more like ... AAAAARRRRRGGGGG! Holy cow, that hurt! (An extra fist pump my way for not breaking out in colorful cursing or breaking into tears).But the pain was the least of my problems. My thumb had been crushed by the ladder, but now it was also wedged in between the two sliding parts of the ladder. And it was wedged in good. I couldn't move the ladder at all, and it was at a crazy angle so I couldn't get the right amount of leverage to move it off my thumb. Now I was in a horrible pickle. No one else was at home, and it would be two more hours before Savannah drove home from school. I could drag myself to the neighbor's house, but I'd have to find a way to drag this increasingly heavy ladder with me. I was getting desperate. Luckily, for some reason (I'll say it was divine intervention), I was able to remain totally calm. No racing pulse, no shortness of breath. I was thinking clearly. I calmly looked at the ladder to see if there was anything I could do to make it budge and finally decided that if I contorted my body just a little and kicked out my foot there was a small chance that I could move one of the legs of the ladder enough to pull my thumb out. So I did. And I was thankfully able to get my thumb out of the pressure point. Thank goodness that I was holding my thumb on the ladder the way that I was. Because of the way I had held the ladder the legs were able to slide past my thumb, only trapping it in between. If I had been holding my hand perpendicular to the way I had be holding it, I am pretty sure that I would have sliced my thumb clean off. Yikes!

And now phase two of my adventure began.

Once my thumb was removed I immediately grabbed it with my left hand and squeezed to manage some of the pain. It wasn't horrible, but I knew that I had done some damage. But I did not want to look. Not at all. I have no problems saying that I could never, ever be a nurse. I just can't look at human injuries. I wouldn't say that I get queasy. I don't know what it is, but my mind just shuts down at the sight of anything that looks remotely painful. And that is when I am looking at other people's injuries. It is ten times worse with my own body. Luckily I have not had to deal with a lot of injuries so far in my life. Maybe if I had I would have a stronger constitution about pain and injury. But I was sitting at home by myself. Somebody had to look, and since I didn't think I had a close enough relationship with my neighbors to say, "Hey, would you mind taking a look at my grotesque thumb injury?" I knew that I would have to be the one to do it. So I looked. It's funny how detached a person can be when looking at an injury so bad that your body part doesn't really resemble what you remembered it to look like. That's what happened to me. It looked like my thumb had been compressed into a pancake. Not the entire thumb, just the middle part of it. One of the fleshy sides of my thumb had been crushed all the way in to the bone, and it didn't look like the flesh was in any hurry to return to normal.

Ice! I needed ice. So to the freezer I headed and grabbed my universally useful package of ...

Frozen Peas!!!

With the injury now iced I sat down and decided what to do next. I thought it would probably be over-reacting if I called 911. But then, even with how bad the thumb looked, it didn't feel like it was broken. I would feel silly to head to the doctor's office, only to be told that it was just an owie, and just to look for a big bruise to appear in the next couple of days. So I dithered a bit about what to do. I thought it was fine, but I was worried that maybe there had been some tendon damage, and I would be upset with myself if I lost the use of my very important thumb because I was too proud to get it looked at by a professional.

I headed to the Mercy walk-in clinic. It wasn't the easiest drive in the world. You forget how important your thumbs are until you are unable to use them. Driving was a bit of a challenge. I managed okay, but it wasn't too comfortable. Thank goodness for relatively light traffic and a short drive.

It was a slower day at the clinic. Hallelujah! I didn't have to wait too long to get in. It was nice to be there to see Dr. Karls and Amanda one last time. Have I mentioned before how much I love Dr. Karls? Well, I love Dr. Karls! I am super sad that he is moving back to Pennsylvania, but I guess it would be super selfish of me to demand that he stay here in St. Robert just to be our doctor in emergencies. And I love Amanda too! But I'll still get to see her since she is not leaving town, just switching jobs.

They did an x-ray. I was able to see the pictures almost immediately after they were taken, and they looked totally fine to me. I was convinced that Dr. Karls was going to come back, put a bandaid on me and tell me to take a few Tylenols ... until he came back and announced that I had broken my thumb in two places. Oh no! For now I would get a splint, but the radiologist was going to look at the x-rays to see if I needed to see an orthopedist and get a cast. So far I haven't heard back. Hopefully that means I won't need a permanent cast. That would complicate my life a lot. With a prescription for Percocet and a sweet new splint I was sent on my merry way. The pain has been manageable for the most part. The biggest challenge is trying to perform normal tasks without being able to put much weight on my thumbs. Crazy hard. Luckily it is the weekend, and I have my trusty band of Blau children around to rotate thumb duties as needed. I'll survive.

Did you read the post about how weird my thumbs are naturally? Well, my thumbs are already super weird. You can read that post HERE. They are short and wide and stubby. There are a whole host of issues with having weird thumbs, but you'll have to read my previous post to hear all about my experience with that. Now I am a bit worried that my right thumb will end up even weirder. What if my thumb ends up short and wide and stubby AND flat as a pancake OR bent at an angle? Then I'll never find the right bowling ball to fit my hand. Or my already deteriorating hand writing will get even worse as I have to learn a new grip. Oh well! At the very least this will make an interesting story for later in life, I guess. 

But you know what? I think I'll wait until Herman gets home and let him replace the light in the boys' room.