My middle finger

It all began when I was born with two perfectly normal middle fingers.

For twenty years I enjoyed complete use of my middle fingers every moment of every day in my quite illustrious life.
Last year I turned twenty and my middle fingers have not been the same since then.

My palms and soles sweat when my sympathetic system decides to demonstrate how well it works – which is quite often.
They sweat when I am nervous, frustrated, excited and basically – all the time.
Sweaty palms make me further frustrated which makes my palms further sweaty.
It is a vicious cycle.
Last year, during my tenure as one among the ‘chosen ones’ (mentioned in my previous post – Licking ass), the story of my middle finger took a funny twist
– Quite literally.

It was as miserable a day as any other.
We were wrapping gifts for the ‘guests’.
I was frustrated.
My palms were sweaty.
The tape wouldn’t stick because usually tape doesn’t stick once it is wet thanks to sweaty palms.
This made me even more frustrated.
This made my palms even sweatier.
One pedestal fan placed at an isolated corner was supposed to cool an auditorium the size of a football field.
One of my friends was kind enough to move it closer to those who were gift wrapping with sweaty palms.
After about ten minutes of struggling with tape I decided I needed to cool off my palms.
I accidentally stuck my hand into the fan in the process.
My hand went numb and I wondered why.
I will never ever forget the sight I saw next.
My middle finger was not exactly in its usual shape.
It actually looked funny – until I noticed all the blood and realised I was the one bleeding.

To make the long story short at the end of two hours and an elephantine dose of local anaesthetic my middle finger looked ‘enhanced’.



I had a hypertrophied middle finger for almost a month – thanks to the splint.
After which I had a stiff middle finger which refused to bend and stuck out of a fist for two weeks – thanks to wearing the splint religiously.
The scar remained and I thought that was the end of my middle finger story until my exams came up.

I do not write more than a sentence a day usually.
But during exams I was expected to write.
And my middle finger hurt after five minutes of writing.
This was solely because I always hated exercising – even if it was for my finger.
I was forced to do silly, comical and extremely idiotic ‘exercises’ with my fingers and rubber bands for half an hour each day.
I still hate exercising.
But the exercises worked wonders in two weeks time.
I know because I took eleven extra sheets for my first paper – not because I had so much to write but because I wanted to check how much I could write until my finger hurt again.
The result was satisfactory.

Everything was well until today.

I have big feet.
And I am not well aware of how big my feet actually are.
I always wear black nail paint on my toe nails.
This is, contrary to public opinion, not because I am interested in looking like a punk or rock music fanatic or weird.
It is because I keep banging my feet everywhere resulting in ugly multicoloured subungual haematomas (bruises underneath the nail).
And the only thing that can hide these ugly multicoloured patches is black nail paint.

I used to think my nails were brittle but then I realised with the force I keep banging them it is truly a wonder my feet do not fall off.

My fingernails are more normal.
I do not grow them long.
I have done it all – square ends, pointed ends, blunt ends…
None of them interest me anymore.
And keeping my fingernails short gives my professors one less excuse to throw me out of clinical postings.

Today I went beyond my usual ‘bang my feet’ routine.
I broke my already short fingernail – right across the middle.
And it is my middle finger.
For those of you who do not know how it feels, I am not going to spoil the fun describing the pain – You really must try it out yourself.
For nine hours I have been struggling to keep mum and not scream out in agony.
I just dropped a rather heavy textbook of mine over my finger before typing out this post – it felt heavenly.

I am reminded of my hypertrophied middle finger days.
I wonder if my middle finger is trying to tell me something.
Maybe it needs more attention.
Maybe it needs me to show it off more often.
As of now I have no idea what it wants.
And the pain is making me insane – if nothing else.

I wish my middle finger could just open its imaginary mouth and tell me what it wanted instead of calling out for attention in these painfully disturbing ways.

Hope this is the end.