The Sign of the Thumb

    This is me removing another piece of scar tissue from my thumb a few days ago. I've been doing this for more than 3 1/2 decades now and still haven't gotten to all the wood I injected in it. I was assembling a piece of furniture with 1 3/4" staples and glue and while stapling a miter corner, one went through and into my thumb. This was over 40 years ago. The injury initially healed over and looked normal until it began swelling 4 years later. I'd already been back to the doctor's about it previously as it was still painful when used certain ways. Dr. Slater was no help at all. He didn't believe that it hit the bone despite my statement to the contrary. So I'd been putting up with it until it began swelling during a particularly busy period of guitar playing. It increased in size to the point where I needed to have it lanced. 

    The doctor's at the clinic told me that it was unlikely that there was wood still in my thumb but after putting some of what came out under the scope they were proven wrong. They removed as much of the scar tissue surrounding the wood as they could but were unable to go all the way to the bone to do so in the clinic. For a while afterward it looked like a normal thumb but soon it began swelling again. I was at work when it popped and drained some ugly looking puss all over the parts counter (my nickname there was Thumbs). One last stop afterwards at the doctors resulted in a negative bone scan and that was it for me. I was left with a ball of scar tissue the size of a small marble next to the bone after it stopped draining. The drain hole never closed. I've removed scar tissue from it every month or so since then. 35 years and my thumb is still rejecting pieces of wood/scar tissue. It's now nearly gone with a small bump left near the skins surface that hopefully will finish ejecting the foreign material and seal over soon.  

    The first time it was lanced was after I'd booted my cheating wife out of our apartment. For the next 2 days everything I'd denied while she was out and about played back in my memory, like a never ending stream of YouTube videos commemorating the high points of her infidelity. So I had known all along but could neither face nor acknowledge it before the final confrontation. I knew who. I knew when. I also observed my behavior throughout and found disliked what I saw. I beat myself up over and over with it and swore I'd never let it happen again (a promise I failed to keep). The feeling I got from the initial draining was religious in nature. I let my internal rage go and reached an understanding that I was going to survive and learn from this. I reached an understanding that If I live long enough and help remove the material it expels I'll see the day that my eternal wound finally heals. 

    This whole experience parallels my internal healing process to the bone. Buried traumas from my childhood seek the sunlight. They no longer hide exclusively in my subconscious. They ask for an accounting and incorporation into a healthier mental state. They want to be dealt with in a loving and kind way. They want to be understood and accepted before becoming part of my whole person. So that's what I continue to do. Hopefully I will continue to heal both physically and mentally as I continue forward.