i wish

all done by hand

all done by hand
Written by Cathoel Jorss,

Off to the hand surgeon to find out whether in his opinion he needs to operate on my finger. The thought of some man cutting me open, down the narrow bone by which I hold my fork, is rendering. I feel nervous: partly because it will all be in German, medical German, and partly because consulting a surgeon on the necessity for cutting seems to me as sensible as asking a mining magnate, do we need fossil fuels.

The word for dislocated, I have discovered, is ‘ausgekugelt’. This means ‘marbled out’ – the marble or ball of the joint lept out of its socket. A scoop of ice cream is also a Kugel.

Since the accident which was a month and a week ago now, things have gotten better before they got worse. I was doing my exercises, encouraging the mortified ring finger to bend, sparing it weight, and then the pain became savagely more severe and my mobility seized up. Now it keeps me awake nights. I took my hand, carried on the end of my arm, to a regular surgeon last week who shook her head. “Das ist eine schwere Verletzung,” that is a serious injury. When I said I want to play guitar she sucked her teeth. What I am learning, apart from a bunch of new medical terms and that German emergency wards won’t treat you unless you bring your passport and the slip of paper by which you have registered – by which every German registers – place of residence, is that as long as I’ve had them, my two hands have worked in concert. I have not had to learn to paint with the brush between my teeth; my life is explored through the fingers the way a cat’s life is foraged via its whiskers; in life, for me so far, as in the vintage past, there is little machinery and everything is done by hand.

14 comments on “all done by hand

  1. Jane says:

    All good wishes… this must be so worrying. I broke a finger three years ago. It is almost back to ‘operational’ now. It is amazing that we can recover from such injuries. Take care.

  2. Jane says:

    PS i can play guitar again… not well, but as well as I could before :)

    • Cathoel Jorss says:

      Oh! Jane! it means such a very lot to me to hear this, thanks very much. I’ve been so worried about it. Whenever I tell a medico I play, they roll their eyes. I’m sorry to hear that you broke your finger, glad to know it is doing its thing.

  3. Plim says:

    Peter, look in the top left corner, at the second finger from the left (the ring finger). See how it points the other way? Cathoel, it does look painful indeed.

  4. Loni says:

    Oh Peter, that X-ray was painfully easy to read. That’s a nasty dislocation, Cathoel. I take it that is straighter now? I hope they can fix it without surgery but after this much time it may need some intervention. You might want get onto some anti inflammatory foods in the meanwhile. Tumeric is really good.

  5. Cathoel Jorss says:

    Thank you Alison. I am trying to soothe it as best I can. The surgeon now thinks maybe he won’t need to fuse it into a permanent claw and it can heal… but it might take eighteen months. That’s a long time not to be able to hold a fork. But it’s less dismaying than a permanent rictus so I can never play guitar again, and barely hold a book.

    I’ve been using arnica, will try comfrey. Thanks very much for the suggestion. xx

  6. Cathoel Jorss says:

    Just got some in the form of a cream, from my local chemist. It smells lovely!

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