Leslie Bown
Ms. Bown
Comp 1B
13 Nov. 2007
Adding Pain to Injury
My worst injury occurred my senior year of high school. I
was playing basketball on the driveway with my family, and I was
going up to make a rebound. My fingers outstretched, the ball
bounced quickly off the backboard and directly onto the ring finger
on my left hand. I immediately fell to the ground in agony. My
dad checked on me to see if I was alright. Through tears, we
checked to see if I could move my finger. I was in so much pain
that I could not even attempt to move it. Gradually that night I got
to the point that I could wiggle my finger a little, which reassured
my parents. Though I iced my finger, the next day it had swollen
to twice its normal size– the black and blue skin was taut and
shiny. I found that I could move my finger up and down, but once
it reached a 45 degree angle at the middle knuckle, it could not
move any farther. I asked my mom whether we should go to the
doctor. My mom is the daughter of a surgeon, and because of that
she firmly believes that most problems can be dealt with without
consulting a doctor. “It’s just jammed,” she said. Staring at my
larger-than-life finger, I said, “um… okay, whatever you say,
mom.” My finger presented problems for me. Driving became a
prissy affair since I had to steer with one finger held daintily in the
air. My piano teacher, peeved that I could not play well with my
left hand, said with a why-did-you-have-to-go-and-play-basketballinstead-of-practicing-piano attitude, “Well, I guess you’ll have to
go research some composers and work on music theory instead.”
By the time that three weeks had passed, my dad examined my still
unbending finger and asked why I had not seen my doctor yet. I
explained to him the situation with mom. We made a deal with her
that if the finger still was not better within a week then we would
go to see the doctor. Needless to say, of course the finger was
broken, and of course the pain of setting the finger was far worse
than it would have been if we had gone to see the doctor a month
earlier. After a month or two of physical therapy though, my
finger was like new. Now I am a firm believer in going to the
doctor for injuries, and I am more wary of playing basketball.