Frodo of the Nine Fingers, or My Mis-Adventure with the Snowblower

OK, here goes...

I thought that I’d take a few minutes this morning to let you know what’s going on and thank you for your prayers. The last few days have been interesting, to be sure.

I was using the snowblower to clear the driveway Saturday afternoon. It was a beautiful, light 10” snow that fell on what was supposed to be the first scrimmage day for my baseball team. I should have been coaching third base, but I was blowing snow! The blower got clogged a couple of times, and I shut the machine off to clear the chute. Toward the end of the job, the blower ran out of gas. I filled it up and restarted the blower, but the chute was clogged again. I honestly remember making the choice to leave the blower on as I cleared the chute. I didn’t think that my hand/fingers would extend down into the part where the blades were turning.

I was wrong.

It felt like I got hit with a stick, or like I banged a cold hand against a hard object—do you know that feeling? I didn’t immediately think that I was hurt, but I noticed that the tip of my glove was missing—not a good sign. I pulled off the glove to see the damage…

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I was missing about an inch of my left middle finger. The blade took it off from the last knuckle, leaving a little flap of skin along the ring-finger side. The wasn’t much blood, and I could see the bone.

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I shut off the snowblower, grabbed my wrist to slow whatever blood flow there was, and ran to the front door to call Kim. I believe that I shouted something like “Kim, come quick. I just cut off my finger!” Kim doesn’t have a real good track record when blood and trauma are in the mix, but she was great. She got the girls off to Amie’s, got me a towel to apply direct pressure to the wound, and grabbed a plastic bag so that I could put the fingertip into snow and take it with us. I found the fingertip in the snow inside the snowblower, and dropped it in the bag. I thought that maybe the doctor could sew it back on.

We got to the ER, and I was a sweaty mess! I had been a little sweaty from the snowblowing, but add the stress of the injury with the warmth of the ER and my warm workclothes, and I was drenched.

I’m not sure how long we waited, but eventually I go to see the doc—Brad Barter. He was great. It turns out that there was another guy in the room across the hall who cut the end of his finger off in his woodshop (seems maybe we need a ban on woodshop and snow removal—or maybe it’s just me…) doc Barter got to practice his finger surgery skills, though. He drugged me up, and told me I had about 45 minutes of surgery ahead of me. Kim didn’t want to watch the surgery anyway, and since she was in her jammmies (she was cleaning out the closets, getting stuff ready for a yard sale), she headed home for a quick shower. I took a little nap, and woke up about 30 minutes later.

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The doc said that the tip of the finger was a goner. It seems that I chopped just enough to get to the bone, but not enough to have something to re-attach. Dr Barter did a process called ronger (sp), in which they snip the bone down, and snip out some of the flesh inside, then cut the nerves and flexor tendon back. He was able to use the flap that the snowblower left to cover the tip, making a pretty nice pad for the end of the finger. I sat up and watched the whole deal. It was pretty amazing. I couldn’t feel it at all, so it was sort of like watching surgery on someone else.

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I don’t know what the recovery process will be like. My initial thoughts—I mean immediately—were about playing guitar, rock climbing, kayaking, and baseball. The doc says that I have a lengthy process ahead of me. There’s no way to predict how fast my finger will heal, or what I’ll be able to do with the altered fingertip. He expects that it’ll hurt like fire for months, maybe up to a year, when I try to use it. But who really knows? Jesus could make that whole fingertip re-grow today! Sadie asked how long it would take to grow back…

I’ve been pretty upbeat through the whole process so far. I know that I may have to change the way that I do things from a functional standpoint. You folks have been great supporters. I have appreciated the calls and emails and prayer. It’s good to have friends like you.

I’m probably going to have to lay low for a little while. I’m not supposed to drive while I’m on percocet, even though I don’t think it does much to me other than taking the edge off the pain. We’ll have to figure things out as we go.

I had hoped to take some good pictures of the process, but Kim didn’t bring the camera.

Thanks for your love and support. Please feel free to pass this on to folks who might be praying or curious about how we’re doing. It’s been a lilt traumatic, but things are good.

I am a huge fan of Lord of the Rings, but I never thought I'd end up with nine fingers...