Losing a Finger

I was twelve (about that anyway) when I lost part of my right hand middle finger. A friend had just got home from hospital and I was going out with a bag of bananas to visit her. My parents' house had a big heavy front door at that time and if you left the back door and the middle door open, you created a through draft that could blow a door shut. I had the bag of bananas in one hand, so I pulled the door shut by putting my hand around the end and pulling. That's OK, you just pull your hand out before the door shuts, right? Well not in this case, because the other doors were open, so the door slammed shut, just catching the tip of my finger and leaving a piece on the inside. I don't remember making a lot of noise, though I guess I did, anyway, I ran down the road to my mother, who was chatting to a neighbour, and waved my hand in front of her, shouting "Look!"

The next thing I remember is sitting in our next door neighbour's car with my hand in a handkercief and it felt very cold. My brother had been in the house and heard the door slam, so he went to the door and found the tip of my finger on the inside, so he brought it out to Mum and me. I've never asked him to describe exactly what it was like (note to self).

I don't remember much else of that day, except that when the nurse stitched me up it really hurt. They told me there was a one in two chance that it would be OK, but nothing else.

I had to wear a sling for a bit and I was off school for a couple of weeks. During that time I practised writing left-handed, but I must be very right-handed because I was useless. The bandage smelled a bit funny and when I went back they told me it had infected further down my finger, so they had to cut off just below the top knuckle. That was the one time I've been in hospital overnight (except when my daughter was born; I mean I stayed by my partner's bed and that's another story). I remember just before the operation a nurse telling me I had nice eyelashes, afterwards a pakistani doctor came to see me and wasn't very impressed with my french and there was a teenager in a private room who had crashed his motorcycle. He had some music, Led Zeppelin I think, must have been on a tape recorder. I thought he was very cool.

Most people don't notice that I'm missing part of a middle finger and it doesn't affect me much. Occasionally I find that I can't lift as much as I should be able to because there's a bit of leverage missing and a few years ago it used to hurt in the Winter, even slightly opening up and my index finger has leant over slightly into the gap where my middle finger would have been. Later when I worked in a print shop several people assumed I'd got injured at work.