I’m a musician for the Army. It’s a good job, and I like it. Gives me the chance to wear a lot of hats. I get to play and compose music, write stories about our band and the stuff we do. Another job I get to do is load the trucks after concerts. Me and some other guys. I like that job too.

Last Wednesday, my band played a concert in Pennsylvania, and afterwards we were loading the truck like always. People bring us cases filled with gear, we pack them in tight, lock up the truck and everyone goes home.

You know those “__ Days Without An Accident” signs you see in factories and warehouses, or in Sam’s Club? We don’t have one of those. But if we did, the number in the box would be pretty impressive. Nobody ever gets hurt on our truck. Everyone knows where everything goes, everyone knows their job, everyone moves fast and looks out for each other.

But every sign goes back to zero eventually.

Situational Awareness!!

A couple of big anvil cases came together hard around one of my fingers, and it popped. “Popped” might seem like a funny choice of words, but if two heavy, unyielding objects close hard enough on flesh and bone, apparently that’s what happens. It pops. We don’t like to think of our bodies that way, I know. THIS is the shape of my nose, or my knee, or my hand, and so it shall ever be. But then something happens, and you’re reminded of how soft and gooey and fragile it all is, and how you’d BETTER BE CAREFUL ‘cause as pretty as it looks now, that is not its permanent state.

So it happened, and people stared, and I don’t blame them because it looked pretty weird and I was staring too, in sort of a creepy detached way because THIS isn’t what this finger looks like, my finger looks beautiful and strong and firm and okay maybe not as nice as SOME fingers but not bad, and certainly not this undignified flattened squirty meat-zit I’m looking at now, and whoops I just sloshed on Spurgeon but luckily he didn’t see and Jesus is anybody gonna look for a bandage or an extra roll of toilet paper or something?

So eventually somebody brought some gauze and ice and we wrapped up the finger, and while somebody else slopped the blood out of the truck, my friend Ward drove me to an emergency room about 20 miles from the gig site, which I appreciated.

“What happened to your finger?” asked the nurse.

“It got smashed between a couple of heavy things,” I said.

“Did it happen at work?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll get you the workman’s comp paperwork.”

“I work for the Army.”

“I’ll get you the paperwork. Does your… friend want to stay?”

“I’ll stay,” said Ward.

“Are you allergic to any medications?” the nurse asked me, looking at a computer screen but not typing anything.

“Not that I know of.”

“Are you allergic to latex?”

“No.”

“On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your pain?”

“9.”

“I’m going to take your vitals,” she said, and did. Blood pressure and heart rate normal.

“Are you going to faint?” she asked.

“What? No.”

“Wait here for a minute.”

“Can we do this after?”

Computer Nurse left, and Ward and I waited obediently for not one minute, but many. After a hell of a long time, another nurse walked in: a short, bearded bald guy in scrubs. “Hand’s messed up, huh?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“Finger popped.”

“Not gonna pass out on me, are ya?”

“No.”

“Allergic to any medications?”

“No.”

“Rate your pain from 1 to 10.”

“9.”

“Taken anything for it yet?”

“Not yet.”

“We’ll get you something. This happen at work?”

“Yeah, but I work for the Army.”

“I was a combat medic. Allergic to latex?”

Beard Nurse redressed the wound, told us to wait there for a minute and left. Ward and I ate the food we had expected to eat on the way home after the gig, and were interrupted by Nurse Three, who once again asked me about workman’s comp, allergies, hurtful numbers and if I was likely to cry or fall down or whatever, and even threw in an offer for a wheelchair at the end.

45 minutes later, we were in a room further back in the hospital, where a female Asian doctor brought us the results of my x-ray: the end of my last finger bone had blown up in what is called a “tuft” fracture (a relatively common injury usually caused by slammed truck doors or hammer strikes), and which is not really fixable. To fix the split tissue, she would have to remove the already-detached nail, assess the damage, put the nail back on and sew it all back together again. But first, she had some important questions:

“Are you allergic to any medications?”

“No.”

“What about latex?”

“No.”

“Please rate your…”

“9-plus.”

“10?” she suggested.

“10 works,” I said. “Can I get something for it?”

“Sure, we’ll give you a block before we put in the sutures.”

“Great.”

“Are you going to puke?”

“NO, I am NOT going to PUKE.”

“I’m just asking.”

Fast forward: the useless gray fingernail came off, revealing a little crater where some finger-meat had blown out of me forever. The doctor cleaned it out a little, put a stitch in the nail to keep it covering the hole, and did her best to match up the two ill-fitting sides of the split finger, which only kind of worked. Some excess meat bulged out from between the sutures, and was trimmed off with scissors. I later learned that this is fairly common, but at the time it seemed questionable. I was already short some tissue, and was really hoping to salvage the rest of it.

The stitches almost made it look worse, and I was surprised to hear the doctor say she was finished. For some reason, I visualized Frankenstein sitting in my chair thinking, Seriously? The shape still wasn’t what one associates with fingers. When it wouldn’t stop bleeding the next day, Elena and I went to the ER at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to follow up.

I can’t say things move any faster at Walter Reed than in other places, but I will say that the doctors there take you seriously as Hell. And I was gratified to learn that, even though the previous night’s patch job wasn’t nice to look at, the doctor had done everything pretty much the way these things should be done. The sensation I’ve lost won’t come back; mobility might; the nail will certainly fall out soon and may or may not grow back; there’s no “fixing” a tuft fracture, but it will improve. I was told at Walter Reed there was a chance a small piece of the finger could go Romero on me and have to be removed, but after a few days healing up, I feel comfortable saying that is extremely unlikely. It’s not much prettier, but in the end, not that serious.

I wanted to write this to update everyone who dropped a line, to answer everyone’s (often-hilarious) questions and rumors, but mostly to let people know: it’s just one finger on my non-dominant hand, and even the worst-case scenario isn’t that bad. I apologize for omitting the gross photos, but I have young students who sometimes read this blog. If you want to see, ask me directly. And if you’re in the band: I imagine they’ll be distributed in randomly-selected music folders before our next gig, blown up in 8.5 x 11.

Many thanks for the concern/prayers/well-wishes, but I’ll be back to work soon, and it’s been an interesting experience. And if you ever want proof that your ailments are insignificant, get it treated at Walter Reed Medical Center Orthopedics and hang out with some of the other patients. I still have it better than anyone.