Finger Jam???

We’re all familiar with a traffic jam, a jam session, jam and jelly—but a finger jam?? Maybe I should call it a jammed finger. For me that brings memories of painful experiences incurred during playing softball or volleyball. Since I have not indulged in those sports for many, many years, I have to admit that my jammed finger occurred during “gouging” at a stubborn stain in a coffee mug preparatory to putting said mug in the dishwasher.

After one particular poke, I noticed a strange sensation and upon extracting my hand from the mug, discovered the middle joint of my middle finger refused to bend. After pulling on it a couple of times with no positive result, I showed it to Dean. I could use the adjoining fingers with some discomfort but that middle finger remained stuck, straight.  Dean thought maybe heat would help the joint so fetched his paraffin  “spa” down off the garage shelf and plugged it in.

Just before I stuck the dislocated finger into the warm paraffin, I called my nurse friend, Kitty for advice. Good thing I waited on the paraffin treatment. Her advice: ice the joint for 15 minutes, let it rest for 15 minutes, ice again for 15 minutes, let it rest and then pull the end of the finger GENTLY (not the action I’d used earlier) and hope that it clicks into place. Long story, short—it didn’t work.

I figured I probably shouldn’t let the joint remain in this fixed position, so I started calling medical offices, beginning with my doctor who wasn’t in that afternoon—of courseL The next two Urgent Care facilities weren’t taking any more walk-ins that day (it was 3 PM by this time.) So to the hospital ER we were headed.

Dean was driving and wanted a smaller water bottle than the one he uses at the house. I got it out of the freezer, showed it to him and then said, “Shall I try to put some water in it?” He thought that would be a good idea, so I headed back to the kitchen and within 4-5 steps realized I was grasping the bottle with curved fingers—all of them curled around the water bottle.

I started screaming, “Praise God! He healed my finger.” What an answer to an unvoiced prayer because we were scheduled to host a Bible study at our house that evening—at 6:30 PM and there was no telling what kind of wait we would have encountered at the ER. The Lord's intervention not only healed a jammed finger, but also saved us time and money. That abused finger is still a little sore, but every time I pick up something with my right hand, I remember how it felt to have that middle finger stuck, straight as a stick. The little “things” in life really are important.