The Good News: got the cast off, the thumb is doing very well.

The Bad News: got a new cast, and it’s on for three weeks.

I snapped a picture while the cast was off – kind of blurry, but you can see the end of the pin sticking out. It looks like a good-sized finnish nail, and it’s serving as an internal split of sorts to hold the joint straight. That comes out when this cast comes off.

Facebook of the Dead nicely captures my problems with Facebook, and to some degree, some fundimental issues with social networking in general. I’ve been online a while now. I’m not hard to find. If people who knew me don’t get in touch, there’s probably a reason. And a handy web site isn’t going to change that.

I’m off the painkillers, and typing with 1.5 hands. I get lots of extra spaces from the cast. It feels great to be out of that druggy haze. I guess I’m just not cut out for drug use.

I’ve been experimenting with Postie, a Wordpress plug-in that allows me to post pictures directly from my cell phone. It’s a bit clumsy, kind of like my left hand is right now. So you might see random posts here, that mysteriously disappear. Phantom posts?

… I’ll be fooking pissed.

I picked up some running sneakers this weekend, and went for a run today. I wasn’t sure I could run for more than a few minutes at a time. As it turned out, I ran for 41 minutes, and did 3.1 miles – around a 12 minute pace. I ran the same trails that I was biking on – Willowdale State Forest, single track mountain bike trails. I found the trail marked for the EFTA mountain bike race that I had intended to do. I haven’t run any distance at all since college. I felt pretty awkward. It’s going to be a while before I remember how to do it.

Tomorrow I go in for surgery on the thumb. I suspect won’t be up for much after that. But I hope to run again Wednesday or Thursday, but we’ll see how it goes. I’m not sure even if I’ll be able to type with my left hand, so my posts may be a bit shorter.

I took an unremarkable fall on an unremarkable log crossing, and sprained my thumb, or so I thought. It turns out I did some damage that’s going to take the summer to heal up.

It’s called “skiers’ thumb”:

AKA Stener Lesion:

I go in for surgery and a cast Monday. The ligament that broke has moved up into my hand, so they have to pin it back on to the bone, on the other side of the first thumb joint. The doctor says there’s 2 months in a splint/cast, then another month recovery. So I’m out until September. It’s going to take a while to get my head around this. Mountain biking has been my major activity for a couple of years now, and I’m pretty much addicted to daily exercise. I’ll have to try trail running or something to keep me from loosing my mind.

They’re great, but I’m down one. I crashed on a log crossing, landed hard on my left hand and bent my thumb back farther than a 50 year-old thumb was meant to go. My plan of doing the 20 mi MTB race at Willowdale this Sunday seems doubtful. I’m feeling pretty good about my abilites, but I kind of need to hold on to the handlebars with both hands.

I did this Tuesday, took yesterday off, and rode on the road today. I did my 13.5 mi loop in 45 min – that’s 18 mph average. I felt really good (except for the thumb). I see the hand Doctor tomorrow – I suspect there’s no major damage, but then, I can’t lift a beer with my left hand any more, so it is something to be taken seriously.

Olive died yesterday. She was hit by a car. Karen found her on her way to the gym early in the morning. I had to go and make sure it was really Olive, because Karen wasn’t sure.

It hit me pretty hard, in ways my rational side just can’t make sense of. Olive makes me think of the daemons in Pullman’s “His Dark Materials”. Though Olive as a favourite of mine had a much more tenuous and subtle connection. Wrapping her up in a towel and putting her in the trunk of my car, I felt like she was long-gone, and the world a colder, lonelier place.

Sam took it pretty hard as well. Davis really doesn’t understand, and told us we should get a fish, then made up a song about a dead cat, which made us all laugh and cry at the same time.