When I was two, I went to slide on my family slide and because older children had gone down it, the metal corner of the slide had ripped and my tiny pinky finger got caught in the rip and as my body slid down the slide, my pinky cut off. My mother found it and at the hospital, they tried to sew the finger back on but the damage was too great.
They then took a skin graft off my stomach and tried to sew that over the bone sticking out the top. That also didn't take.
They then cut my stomach open, inserted my finger and sewed my finger to live skin in my abdomen. They then put me in a body cast for several weeks during the summer to allow my finger skin to grow to my abdominal skin in hopes that they could then use the live skin to cover the bone that was sticking out and save my knuckle so that I could play the piano, type etc.
I don't remember much except I remember being really itchy and hot in the cast and being sad I couldn't swim and run through the sprinklers etc. Back then, the casts were very heavy and couldn't get wet. I remember being in the tub with very little water and plastic bags around me and water getting on the cast anyway.
My least favorite memory is the pain of the cast on my lower back. I remember being in so much pain as the cast cut my lower back if I laid on my back. I couldn't lay on my sides. I remember waking and pushing myself off the cast and crying. It felt like a 2 x 4 board being placed just above your hips on the mattress and you trying to sleep on it. I was only able to fall asleep on my stomach with my hand under me for years. It wasn't until I was pregnant that I even put the two together. To this day, I can't sleep with my legs hanging down or lower than my hips or they ache and twitch all night.
It is funny that a month in a body cast at 2 1/2 can affect someone their entire life.
My mother told me that because it was so hot that when they took the cast off, my arm had grown to my side due to wet, heat and sweat. They had to pull it apart. Thank heavens I don't have any memory of that. I remember getting that toy below from my grandmother and she also crocheted me the slippers I am wearing in the photo to the right. I still have them but I wore them so much I put a hole in one of them. Funny what your remember.....
I know that experience is why I became a nurse. Funny story about that. I was working one night and one of my co-workers noticed my finger being cut off. I told them how it was cut off. About an hour later, a temp nurse asked me how I lost my finger. I gave her a strange look as if I get one person a year asking, that is a lot. She said, "I'm only asking because I am missing the tip of one of my fingers as well and it was cut off on our slide when I was little."
I gave a "ha ha" laugh and said, "Very funny." She asked what I was talking about. I said, "Did (my co-workers name) put you up to that?" She told me she didn't have any clue what I was talking about. I told her how I cut my finger off and thought she was joking or making fun of me.
She assured me she wasn't and showed me her middle finger and the top knuckle was missing.
When we bought the house we live in now, you will not believe what was in the back yard... Yes, a metal slide with a rip in the corners. The first thing I did was take off that slide. It was cheaper for me to buy a new set than to buy a plastic slide for that one. So, I share this post as a warning to parents. Don't buy metal slides. They can burn when they are hot and can cut as they rip and are sharp.
Thanks to my parents and the Doctors and nurses who saved my knuckle so I can type faster than most people I know and play the piano some and am grateful for my knuckle and all my fingers. Funny what we take for granted until they are gone.
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