Whilst working on my cardboard ukulele that I’ve been playing around with lately I was doing some fairly questionable scalpel work. My hand slipped and I sunk the scalpel into the middle finger of my left hand.
Anyone that’s ever cut themselves with a scalpel will know that it’s a sort of delayed action event. You don’t really feel anything initially and the blood doesn’t come immediately either. It’s almost like they’re so sharp that your body doesn’t react straight away. That said, I was pretty quick to react. I didn’t swear (the kids were downstairs), but I put the finger in my mouth whilst I grabbed something to wrap around it. I then made a quick makeshift bandage and held my finger above my head (probably a bit OTT) to reduce the blood flow to it.
It’s been a few hours now and the throbbing pain has died down a little but I’ve not yet inspected the damage. I feel like I might have cut into the nail. I hope I haven’t and I sort of don’t really want to look. My initial reaction was that I’m not going to be playing ukulele for a few weeks but having given it some thought, it might actually be a good thing…
I can definitely still work on my right hand technique and whilst I might not be able to play any chords, I’ve wanted to spend some time on split strumming, clawhammer and a few other right hand techniques for a while now and it seems like the perfect excuse. No distractions from my left hand. Or is there…
Then I started thinking, can I still play chords? I can just play without my middle finger for a few weeks, surely. It’s going to mean finding some different ways to play some chords but I can still play. Where there’s a will there’s way!
I have played on stage with a broken right hand, broke and wired jaw and broken back at various times. Being a professional mechanic, it is rare that I am without a multitude of cuts on my hands. Pass through the pain