Half A Monkey

I'm two months slow on some of my news but it was hard to type for the first month. I dislocated my left thumb snowboarding at Mt. Bachelor in Oregon on President's Day and I'm just now starting to feel complete again.

Vero and I were up in Bend with Mike and Yen and Yen's parents over the long weekend in a rented house. The snow on the mountain wasn't spectacular the first couple days but it was much better than conditions had been in Tahoe. My first day on the mountain was great and I spent it just getting back into the groove of snowboarding. The second day conditions got a little worse; it was windy and there were icy patches here and there so you didn't know when you were going to be on good snow and when you might hit a spot that would make it difficult to catch an edge. Mike and I found the snow in the trees to be a bit better so we were spending some time in there.

At one point we were at the top and I was thinking that I was tired and would make this my last run. We headed down together and then got separated as we entered the trees in different places. As I was coming back out I hit an icy spot and started to slide towards a tree. I think I was headed feet first but my body may have turned slightly because I put out my left hand and hit the tree with my board and my hand at the same time. I didn't feel anything but I felt like something was wrong so I took off my left glove and sure enough, there was my thumb where it wasn't supposed to be. As I was looking at my hand the thumb was sitting off and to the right of its natural position and pointed to the right. It looked so unnatural that I just wanted to put it right so I placed it where it should go but it didn't stay so I had to board down to the bottom of the mountain freaking out about my thumb.

I made it to Ski Patrol, managed to get unstrapped from my board, and walked in. I was expecting to be rushed right away to fix things up but they appeared to be decidedly unconcerned. The Ski Patrol guy pointed out the doctor that would help me but then said to let him do his part. So he sat me down and started filling out a form with all my information. I don't see why he couldn't do all that while they fixed me up but at least it gave me a chance to calm myself down as I realized I wasn't very in control. Mr. Ski Patrol filled out the form while I answered questions, the doctor was reading a newspaper, and my thumb was still where I didn't want it to be but I realized it probably wasn't as urgent as I thought.

After that they took x-rays to make sure nothing was broken and then it came time to put the thumb back in place. I was tensed up and the doctor told me to relax but this was the point in the movies where people scream out in pain as the dislocated limb gets put back in place. So I was there thinking, "This is gonna hurt. This is gonna hurt. This is gonna hurt.", but then I looked down and there was my thumb right where it was supposed to be. It was quite anticlimactic. Once my thumb was relocated they took more x-rays and then put me in a cast to keep it immobilized and sent me on my way.

Of course now that I had injured myself, a storm moved in and dumped so much snow that the next couple days were epic. I sat in the lodge and read the next day and walked up and down the bunny slope a few times to teach Veronica how to turn on a snowboard. Mike kept coming down the mountain with news of how great it was. Oh, well, there's always next year. I actually feel like I got off easy. There are so many worse possibilities, like pulling a Sonny Bono.

I was actually afraid I would need surgery to repair a ligament because the doctor said it was a possibility and I had to wait a couple weeks to see a hand surgeon in San Francisco. As it turned out, though, everything was fine and the hand surgeon put me in better brace for two more weeks and then I started hand therapy. My thumb was super stiff at first, which was the goal, because of the new scar tissue but now things are stretched out and my strength is good but I'm still working on endurance. I haven't been juggling, climbing or biking for over two months and I actually went to Yosemite last weekend and couldn't climb. I did go for an easy mountain bike ride on Thursday and although my thumb felt a little sore, I finally feel whole again. Life's difficult without a thumb and I'm very happy to have it back.