After having a bout with a terrible flu to end the regular season, we have Murphy’s Law Part II. In the first playoff game I was playing great. We were winning the game, I was scoring a high percentage of my shots, and then it happened…I jammed my fingers against the hip of one of my teammates. Before I looked at my hand, I already knew what I had done, it was a dislocation of my middle finger at the middle joint. Since I’ve dislocated other fingers and a thumb before, I thought a routine pull and click would reset the joint. I just knew I would return to the game in a few minutes, at most.

I did say Murphy’s Law was still in effect, didn’t I? Well sure enough, the doctor on the sideline couldn’t get my finger back in place. I kept trying to give him the sound effects and motion of pulling and clicking it back in place since there was a slight language barrier, with him speaking zero English and me, about 10% Turkish. Our team doctor came over and said that I had to go to the hospital to set the joint back in place. Of course, being the trooper that I am, I wanted to finish the game, so I was trying to get them to understand that all they had to do was pull and click (easier said than done of course). She did say that I didn’t have to rush to the hospital, and since I seem to have a high pain threshold, I decided to see the last 5 minutes of the game to make sure we won.

While I sat on the bench with a dislocated finger, the men’s basketball team trainer decided to have a go at it. I only let him do so figuring the 3rd time’s a charm and he’s such a nice guy and seems to be somewhat of a magician when it comes to injuries and healing (that’s my personal opinion based on his 30+ years experience and his ability to make my old knees feel young again). He worked and worked on my finger until I had to throw in the towel. I started feeling a bit too much pain, and I understood that if he couldn’t get it back, maybe I did have to go to the hospital.

We won the game and I put on my warm-up and went to the hospital, or so I thought. First we went to the doctor’s apartment. His son was watching SpongeBob Square Pants and his wife gave my daughter, BreAzia some tasty homemade chocolate cookies. Once he realized my finger wouldn’t reset, he advised us to go get anesthesia injected into my finger to see if that would help.

Once at the emergency room, and after the anesthesia, Cengiz Yilmaz, MD recommended surgery to fix my finger. Soft tissue was lodged in the joint and he didn’t want to further damage it. We went to get an X-ray and it showed a clean dislocation with no fractures.

So all of a sudden, I’m going into emergency surgery and all I can think is, I’m glad I had BreAzia eat an early dinner before the game, or she would be starving by now. 

I had a local anesthesia and it had my whole arm numb. After only 30 minutes of surgery, the doctor reset my finger and repaired the volar plate (fibrous band over the middle finger knuckle that keeps it from hyper-extending). Other than that, the lateral ligaments were intact, so I was glad to hear that.

The recovery time for the average person is 6 weeks. Since I don’t have 6 weeks and it’s understandable that athletes need a shorter time frame, we’re hoping for a 2 week recovery. I’ve started physical therapy and I have a soft cast on it to protect it. I still can’t get the sutures wet, so I’m operating with one hand, taking one handed showers and I’m no longer on dish duty. This is one of those moments that I’m really glad I cut and washed my hair the day before I hurt myself and that BreAzia is turning 10 on Tuesday. She’s old enough to handle all of the dishes for me.

As for basketball, we ended up losing the next game, but we are still up 2-1 in a best of 5 series, so it still looks good for us. We play again tomorrow. If we win, we advance, and we'd have 16 days until the 2nd round starts, so I should be good to go by then. I’ll keep you posted on my recovery and how the team is doing.

Please pray for a quick recovery and the ability of my team to win without me!

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