March 2020
Injury is a heightened state of recovery.
Does it define you?
It can either consume your personality like a black hole or become one of the greatest teachers.
Moment of F@ck #1…
My middle finger has become useless. Right as the outbreak of the Coronavirus occurred, the bottom third of my right middle finger began to inflate like a cheap balloon from Party City. With each centimeter of added diameter, its red color and sensitivity increased. At this time I am a 26-year-old man person. So, as we do when it comes to injury, we self-diagnose.
Ignorance isn’t bliss; it is pain.
My uneducated diagnosis was that I broke the finger, so my solution was tape it up and go to work. What a stupid fucking idea. I would then proceed to wear multiple gloves and plunge my hand in a bucket of ice to numb it throughout my shifts.
What I had not considered was what a doctor would inform me days later… Doc: “How did you break it?” DipShit Me: “I don’t know exactly.” Doc: “When something is broken you would remember the moment it became broken. What you have is an infection.” DipShit Me: “Oh that makes sense.”
Side Note: I had worked three full shifts with a tape-fashioned cast around an infected finger as it continued to grow each day. Fucking Stupid!
Moment of F@ck #2…
I had called off work and was at home. I at this point checked my Whoop app and saw that I got little recovery in my sleep so I proceeded to chug some NyQuil and pass back out. Just before that I sent a picture of my finger to my mom to lighten my spirits.
Side Note: I get great fun in sharing things with my mom that will either disappoint or disgust her, but this was different.
Just before passing out from the swig of sleepy time juice, I read my mother’s response. Mom: “Infected. Soak immediately and doctor.” She doesn’t often text with clear directions and it was lacking of an emoji or post from facebook. This meant she was serious. My mother comes from a long line of nurses and is the oldest of seven kids. So she knows what something looks like. So I informed her that I would go after sleeping off the NyQuil. That was stupid. Infections don’t wait for you to be fully rested.
Once I woke, I took off to one of the few non-frantic urgent cares. That is when I had that conversation with the doc that it was truly an infection. The Doc would then prescribe a shot of potent antibiotics into my butt and a bottle to take with me. He would then inform me that if it doesn’t get better in the next forty-eight hours that I should go straight to an ER to get it drained.
This is the last thing I wanted because I don’t fear anything, but what I hate most are needles.So I scampered home with some level of hope and a strict antibiotic regimen.
Moment of F@ck #3…
I went into my trusty sick recovery mode which is as follows:
- Undies
- Bed
- iPad with The Office playing continuously.
- Lots of water.
The next thirty-six hours were torture. With every passing hour the finger continued to resemble an angry customer at a bar with a deep red complexion and throbbing rage. I did my best to stay calm and lose myself in silly Youtube content and the peace of The Office. Once night rolled around, my apartment became my own personal purgatory. I remembered what my mom said: “soak immediately.” So every time I would feel the violent throbbing pain of an inflamed infection, I would go to the bathroom sink, pour a bit of bleach, and crank the water to as hot as it would go. With a folded towel on the floor for my knees and one beside the sink to rest my head, I would do my best to chase the relief that would never come.
This night broke me mentally as I made countless angry and exhausted trips to the bathroom soaking for only momentary relief. At two am I would ball up in the fetal position on the floor beside the bed to cry and surround my finger in the ball I made with my body. All in the pursuit to not wake my partner because this was my pain to bear. Countless more rotations of soaking later and it would now be eight am and I had only got two hours and thirty-six minutes of sleep.
Feeling like shit and with a hand that felt as if a demon was possessing it, I charged to the urgent care once more. I wasn’t thinking straight and just wanted answers. The doc would inform me to go to Torrance Memorial for treatment as it has gotten worse. As I drove over to the ER I sat in silence doing my best to not shatter into millions of pieces emotionally.
So I did what I know best: detach.
I mentally accepted the ignorance and pain of my choices and disintegrated my emotions to become a robot that only had one goal. Health.
“A sick man only wants one thing; a healthy man wants ten thousand things.” – Confucious
I wasn’t focused on anything else but to have my right dominant hand back to working order.
Moment of F@ck #4…
As I approach the ER I am reminded we are on lockdown with the Coronavirus. A nurse pushes her hand out firm and says, “Wait here!” As I stood at attention waiting for instruction, she would continue, “Do you have a fever?” Me: “Not at all.” Nurse: “Why are you here?” Me: “My finger is infected.” She then gestured to the window ahead and shoots hand sanitizer into my hand.
As I then go through patient check-in, I am shortly escorted to the ER where I would be interviewed by very stressed out hospital staff.
Rightfully so.
They asked the basic “what happened” questions. This next question would be something that triggered me into realization. Doc: “How did this get to be so bad of an infection?” Me: Dead of emotion and severed from my ego, I said, “ignorance isn’t bliss.”
I would then explain the last few days void of any excuses because I knew that even then I had yet to discover how I was still the one who wasn’t clean enough.
Lesson One: Your Ego is a great defense mechanism, but is never truly helpful.
The next few hours would become the most painful I have experienced in my life thus far. As the doc approached my bedside he informed me of the process. He would have to numb the area, lance my finger open and massage the pus from the cavity. Little did I know the numbing agent would have no effect and I would have to experience this with white knuckles. As he guided the needle full of numb numb juice into the infected area my core temperature started to skyrocket. My head started emanating heat like a fireplace on a winter morning. Sweat poured from my head, caught by my beanie. My limbs shook with a tempo I couldn’t manage as he cut into my finger. Doc: “How are you doing?” Me: “Good.” Doc: “Wow look at all that’s coming out.” Me: “No thank you.”
The doc had no idea that I could feel more than the pressure he was applying. Shaking from every limb I did my best to focus on my breathing and to restrain myself. It was like trying to hold down a live lion inside my mind. As the Doc completed the draining the pain would persist for the next hour as I tried to distract myself. Podcast, Youtube, and finally I found the latest Lion King on the ER TV. I kept my eyes fixed on that screen as I repeated in my head….
“This too shall pass.” – Bible
This was the only way I would get through this. A nurse would then set me up with an antibiotic IV and I would sit using it as a timer til I could leave and do something about the pain.
Drenched in sweat, filled with anguish, and grateful to be done, I would walk to my car. As I was on my way to the CVS for my prescription I would call my mother. This opened my eyes to lesson number two.
Lesson Two: This isn’t the end. Pain is temporary.
I would then describe the intense hot pain I experienced and how I now have some perspective of what it’s like to be in a hospital bed alone and in mountains of pain. I called my mother because out of anyone I know she has had more than her share of pain. No one else would be able to understand perseverance as she does. I have never been so happy to go to CVS during a crisis.
Lesson Three: You aren’t invincible, but you have more in you than you will ever know.
Pain teaches you how much you can handle and live through. It is the truest of teachers because it never sugar-coats or bullshits you. For that I have major respect for pain. This isn’t the first time I have sat down with pain at a tea party and it won’t be the last. Life became more finite in this moment.
During a crisis like a virus I had a small trial of my own. For those who are sick at this time…. It will suck, life won’t feel that worth it.
But! I promise if you live through it, take the lessons from it, because memory is fickle, but lessons are multi-generational.
“Become the individual that refuses to see duties undone. The person that lives like there is no tomorrow because there very well might not be.” – David Goggins
Mr. Sods 