Phew! That was a close one...

Yesterday, I narrowly escaped what was sure to be a disappointing, painful, and all around unpleasant experience. That's right, Maddy, Hannah, and I had plans to go rock climbing. usually, I would jump at the chance to go rock climbing... especially a few months ago, when we were climbing at least 3 times a week. Last night, however, I was wary. To be honest, I was terrified. Last time I went climbing was about a month and a half ago during labor day weekend. Looking back, attempting to climb that day was foolish enough.

You see, earlier that week, when climbing, I had made an egregious error, misjudged some distances, completely ignored the existence of some aspects of the wall, and as a result, bashed up my hand pretty bad (more specifically: my thumb). At first, it wasn't an issue. My thumb was bruised, sure, but it didn't hurt very much... hence why I saw no reason to forego climbing that weekend. After that, however, things took a turn for the worse (note: I tend to be a little over dramatic... in reality, it wasn't actually that big of a deal). About a week after the incident, my thumb (and by extension, the rest of my hand/wrist) started really bothering me. It was time to take matters into my own hands (take on my own hand matters? take my hand matters into my own hands?). I tried self treating the problem (at the suggestion of my pretty knowledgeable brother-in-law) by getting one of those wrist support/carpal tunnel friendly bracelets (which probably made things worse for my thumb, as it had the opposite of support for it; my wrist, on the other hand (not literally the other hand... it's just an idiom), felt better than it has in years). After 2 weeks of that brace having little effect other than making my usually impeccable penmanship look wonky, I decided to finally go to a doctor (or hand off the responsibility?). The lady at the Minute Clinic took an x-ray, told me my thumb was jammed, and put me in a splint to wear for a few days. Then she said, in no uncertain terms, that I was not to rock climb until I was fully healed (she also said not to partake in any other activities that would aggravate my thumb, which, to my dismay, included piano playing, X-treme thumb wrestling, and marbles).

About a week later, she called back to tell me that they took another look at the x-ray and discovered that I might have a chip fracture (they weren't sure as the x-ray was kind of fuzzy) and instructed me to go to an orthopedic doctor to have it looked at again. Needless to say, because my thumb was feeling better already, and I didn't cringe or angrily hulk out when typing anymore, I decided to ignore her suggestion and not follow up with anyone (I'm pretty good at both following directions and making smart choices in regards to my health). I haven't really had any issues, and the only times my thumb has really hurt were times when I was doing something weird that equally hurt my other, uninjured thumb.

Anyway, over the past couple weeks, my hand has been doing much better, so when Maddy invited me climbing last night, I figured that now was as good of a time as any to pick it back up. Then I got nervous. What if climbing would aggravate my hand? What if I'm not fully healed yet? What if I should have gone to the doctor, as I was instructed? Even best case scenario, I haven't climbed in so long that I don't have my callouses or my super toned arm muscles anymore (... yeah... no one is believing that I ever had super toned arm muscles... and with good cause). As excited as I was to finally get back into the swing of things, I was kind of flipping out (as I am extremely apt to do), so when Maddy contacted me to let me know that her flight back to town was cancelled due to debris on the runway, I was all too happy to put away my climbing shoes and head over to Hannah's to work on her Halloween costume (or more accurately, eat ice cream and watch Better Off Ted).

I think I'll give my thumb just a little bit longer to heal... then I'll be good to go. In the meantime, I'll stick to hands-free activities like tap dance!


When avoiding an activity due to injury, at what point does it shift from healing to stalling? If my hand has been feeling better, should I jump back in the metaphorical saddle and get back on the wall, or should I actually follow the doctor's advice and follow up with another doctor? Did you ever realize how many hand-themed idioms there are?

P.S. While I'm actually relieved that we didn't go climbing last night, I feel bad celebrating considering that it meant that Maddy was stuck at an airport for what must have seemed like eons. Sorry Maddy! Welcome back!