It was a dim, damp, blustery morning- far colder than we had expected to encounter in Alabama- but there were trusses to be set and somebody had to do it. So that is how i came to be on a ladder wearing all the layers I brought with me but still struggling to maintain feeling in my extremities. I don't do well in the cold- its like my joints freeze up and my body refuses to respond. To compensate, i choked up my grip on the hammer to lessen the likelyhood of it slipping from my frozen fingers. This was the first component in the unfortunate chain of events. Next was the fact I am left handed, and though I've been working on my ambidextrous hammering skills, my right hand still leaves a lot to be desired. We made it through the first three trusses just fine, but then came that fateful fourth. I was on a ladder inside the house with the wall on my left and the truss in front of me. Now, it is generally assumed that in an accident involving a hammer and a thumb, it is the thumb not holding the hammer that gets injured. However, I seem to have an innate predisposition for obscure methods of injury (a cafeteria tray and an ankle come to mind), so naturally I managed to crush the thumb that was holding the hammer. While attempting to toenail the truss into the topplate, I apparantly miscalculated the angle at which i was swinging or the distance from my grip to wall and as i swung down with full force my thumb was pinned between the hammer grip and the topplate. Ouch. I didn't scream, I didn't cry, but by the time i got to the bottom of the ladder it was bleeding around edges and the nail was already turning blue. I tried to be tough- I mean seriously, it's a thumb. How bad can it be? But I spent the rest of the morning standing around doing my best to act normal but secretly trying to not vomit or pass out. I had no idea it could hurt that bad. Around lunch time, one of the other volunteers (a nice older man named Ron) asked how it felt and if it was throbbing. It most definitely was, and he informed me that there was a way to aleviate that, but it required drilling a hole through my thumbnail. Aweful as that sounded i was up for anything that might help. He found a tiny drillbit, held my thumb tightly and slowly worked the bit back and forth until it made it through the nail and the blood could come out.
It helped almost right away. I confess, i did cry a bit for this part. Embarassing yes, but it had more to do with the thought of what was happening than the actual pain. Drilling holes in nails is really a rather disconcerting concept that seems much more akin to torture than first aid.
It helped relieve the pressure, but after an hour or so it was right back to throbbing. We tried reopening the hole, which helped, but Ron suspected that there were actually two pockets under the nail and a second hole was in order. It was way less scary the second time around and sure enough, it helped a lot. By the afternoon I was back to work and making great strides with my right handed hammering. The workday ended on a bright note when i was introduced to the palm nailer. For those of you with an affinity for tools, they are amazing and if you aren't acquainted with them, you must look it up. It is still pretty painful and I'm pretty sure I'll be loosing the nail. My whole thumb is sort of swollen and just doesn't want to bend, but hopefully that will go away in a couple of days. Ok, really long and overly dramatic story about a thumb, but now you know all the gorey details. I supose the moral of the story is don't cross your thumbs or you will pay greatly. I shall never take my thumbs for granted again.
