The following post contains descriptions and pictures of a very injured finger. The picture isn’t as bad as it sounds but if you are squeamish about that kind of stuff consider yourself warned. And if there are spelling mistakes, too bad. I have one less functional finger.
I have a hate/hate relationship with birds. Spring workouts have been somewhat terrorizing at times when I have been dive bombed and chased by Red Winged Black Birds in various locations throughout my life. They frighten me like no other. This incident does not help their cause.
It all started at 8:00 a.m. the first morning of 2011. I was awoken from what was finally a peaceful slumber after tossing and turning all night with a mega head cold. No, I was not in fact feeling the effects of too much partying the night before. These folks were in bed way before the ball dropped. The sound was a knocking…somewhere. Normal people wouldn’t have been waken up by this noise, or would have been at least able to fall back asleep, but since I am the lightest sleeper ever, I had to find out what and where it was coming from. Now.
I started peeking out the windows. Not any neighbors. Thank God because it was about 1 degree and 8:00 am on New Years Day. But, crazier things have happened. I finally determined that the noise was on our house. A woodpecker? Don’t they migrate? What is happening? Why won’t it stop? After drawing the last blinds left in the living room, I see not one but two giant crows fly away from the house. The noise stops. Interesting.
Of course the next logical thing to do is put on my coat and see what they were doing up there. Turns out there is some kind of food (?) they were pecking away at. It could be an orange rind. I assume one of them found it somewhere, flew away with it, and decided the 10 square inch area not covered in snow on the corner of our roof was a great place to eat it.
Somehow I manage to go back to sleep after being out in the jarring cold. Fortunately the birds don’t come back until the next day. I decide we need to get whatever it is they are eating off the roof or it will keep happening and I will succumb to buying a pellet gun and shooting animals at will. Well maybe not.
I get geared up the next day for a brisk, icy run. Thanks to my sweet new traction spikes I have a great run. No slipping! I could climb a mountain! When I get back home I go into the garage and get out a rake to see if I can get that orange rind (or whatever the dang thing is) off the roof. I wasn’t quite tall enough and even with all that traction I wasn’t able to get it.
Oh well. I go back into the garage, but the rake away, and go to close the garage door. (There isn’t an electric opener on our door). I grab the handle and guide the door down, admiring those spikes, when…..my glove gets caught between two of the panels and….so do my FINGERS.
In what seemed like slow motion I look at my fingers for a second and can’t believe what I am seeing. I gather my strength to lift the heavy door back up so I can get them out and run in the house. I take off my glove and get nauseous instantly. My middle finger in my right hand looks alien like. A pressure blister is at the tip and the nail is instantly purple. I can honestly say I have never felt pain quite like it before. Not even when I broke my foot.
When I was able to breathe again, I called my Dad to see if I should go into Urgent Care. He is an expert when it comes to stuff like this after a long career in x-ray and having seen just about everything in the ER. Lots of ice and ibuprofen are about all I can do. He said if I go in they might lance it through the fingernail to relieve the pressure from the blood, or I could do it myself. Faint. No thanks.
I can’t help but wonder if the fact that my hands were a little cold when it happened helped the situation. Oh and the thought has crossed my mind a few times that if crows didn’t exist I wouldn’t have been going in the garage in the first place. And that my friends, is yet another reason why I hate birds.
What is the worst pain you have felt? Please don’t say childbirth.
Okay you can, but try to reassure me yet again it was all worth it.
