Tonight, I had planned on blogging about something else entirely.  I went looking for an old photograph to scan into the computer as part of that blog.  I was pretty sure I knew where the picture would be hidden: my box of memories.

Over the years, I’ve held on to many things which I couldn’t bear to part with.  When I lived in North Carolina, some of these things were in various places in the house, but the bulk of it had been boxed up years before when I had left home for college.  When I returned home (at the end of one semester), I began a tradition of adding to that box.

At first, the box ended up moving within my parent’s house.  Then, when I bought my first house in 1997, it moved to the new place.  Some of the stuff inside found its way into my computer room, but was packed away when we started renting out that room.  When we moved from North Carolina to Utah, I took a marker and wrote “E’s Junk” on it.

In Utah, at a relative’s house, the box didn’t get opened much, but stuff would occasionally find it’s way in there.  After a couple years, we bought another house and the box was put in a storage room.  Occasionally, I’d pop it open looking for something, or add something to the pile.  It never really made it’s way out of that room while I lived there.  At some point before selling that house last year, the contents of the box were transferred to a plastic container, the words “E’s Junk” written on the lid.  The fifteen year old box was used for something else when we moved to the new house.  The box itself now sits in my garage’s loft area.

The plastic bin made its way into my office.  Recently, I consolidated some things and put new items into the box.  It was there that I thought I’d seen the photograph I was searching for.  So, tonight, Jill and I opened the bin labeled “E’s Junk."  My box of memories.

Sifting through its contents, Jill seemed surprised to see some of the things in there.  Even more, I think she was surprised that I could recall the history of most any object within the box.  While looking for the photo, I remarked that the box would serve as good inspiration for the blog.  And since I didn’t find the photo I was looking for, I decided to do just that.

The first thing from the box concerns one of the most pivotal events in my life: the accident with my left thumb.

I don’t talk about the accident much.  It happened at work.  I was using unsafe equipment and took that fact for granted for many years.  In one careless moment, I’d almost completely severed my thumb from my hand.

After hours in the ER waiting for an orthopedic specialist, I found myself in surgery.  They drove pins through the bone to repair the break, and stitched it to repair the flesh and skin.  A moldable impression was made of my thumb, which served as a splint while it healed.  The thumb was then wrapped up in gauze and Coban, and placed in a sling to keep it above my heart.  With medications running through my body, I was sent home.

For seven weeks I stayed home, using some of the same pain medication I’m using now on my foot.

Daily, I switched out gauze.  I applied hydrogen peroxide to my thumb.  I lived with nastiness.  I lived through pain and disgusting smells.  I got through the healing process.  Every day, I could see the pins sticking out my my thumb.  Every day, I placed that splint on my thumb, even as the thumb itself began to take on a different shape than the splint.

Even after returning to work, I lived with my thumb in it’s state of healing.  I continued to see my doctor.  At some point, he was concerned about the healing.  He told me I wasn’t cleaning it enough, when I knew I’d been doing it just as he asked.  He told me I’d be able to move the thumb in the end, even after I told him I healed quickly and would probably need the pins out sooner than he was expecting.  In the end, I came out of the ordeal with a slightly mangled digit with a fused bone inside.  My thumb today, 14 years and about two months later, is a shadow of what it once was.

Now, I see that splint, which was molded to my thumb as it appeared on the day I cut it, and I can’t help but think of how my life changed because of that accident.  The splint fits the lower-half of my thumb just as well as it did when I was 20.  The upper-half of the splint does not conform to my thumb as it is now.

The splint is a reminder of what my thumb used to look like.

The pins, one of them misplaced, probably lost, remind me of the pain I endured.  Until that time, I never fully realized how much pain I could take.  I never knew that I was capable of turning off much of my pain for a period of time.  I would guess that this incident was where I learned that trick, though there were lots of cuts and close calls over the years that I managed to subconsciously get through in much the same way.  Today, as my legs hurt from constant pain, pressure, and stress from what little walking I can accomplish, I can’t help but think about how debilitating that thumb accident was all those years ago.  Seeing the splint and the pin only reminded me of that more.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t see the splint and note some great loss for my thumb.  For a time, I thought the incident was meant to be.  When the reasons for that fateful path in my life dissolved and disappeared, I found myself resenting the whole thumb ordeal.  I relived the anger of what had happened to me all those years ago, and found myself adding new angers I’d never experienced 14 years back.  However, in short time, I moved on again.

I wish I’d never had this accident.  I recognize that my life as it is today may have been completely different if not for this event.  Still, it doesn’t change the fact that I deal with my damaged thumb each day.  I jokingly tell people that I look forward to a future where genetic therapy can cause your own cells to regenerate and mold damaged tissues into their original genetic format.  In other words, one day I could have a procedure to have my thumb’s cells reborn in the original blueprint my thumb was designed for.  While this joke sounds like science fiction, I know all to well that it could be possible in time.  And even more so, I know that deep down, I’m not joking at all.  In reality, it’s the first thing I would fix if given the chance.  I’m not sure if that’s sad, hopeful, or simply human of me.

And so, I close this entry by putting my thumb splint and bone pin into a plastic bad, to be placed back into my box of memories.  Part of me is glad I held onto them.  Another part of me wishes I’d never needed them.  And my entire being knows that, as I type without using my left thumb, or steer my car without my left thumb, or hold my silverware in funny ways, I will never be able to forget these items.

They sit in my box of memories.  They reside within my mind.

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