My Left Hand (not a sequel)

It was twelve years ago today that I fought with a woodsplitter and it won. A group of us were cutting and splitting wood to stock up for the winter. We had quite a system - two were cutting the logs with chainsaws, one guy was working the lever on the splitter and hubby and I were loading the splitter. We had been hard at it all morning. It happened so quick I'm not sure exactly what happened. What I remember was keeping my hand on the log until the wedge met the log - we had been doing that to keep it steady. The wedge hit a gnarly piece of red elm and the log popped up placing my hand between the splitter and the wood. I realized what was happening and I yelled. I yelled not because I was in pain, but rather to get the operator to pull back the wedge. I didn't really feel anything - just numb. I grabbed my hand and looked at John and said "Hospital, now!"

Long story short, ended up amputating the middle finger on my left hand. Rather than leaving a big gap, they also removed the knuckle and bone for the finger down to my wrist. It is not very noticable and most people can know me for quite a while before they realize I can only count to 9 with my fingers. I was typing 60 wpm again within a couple of months. Mom jokingly said "I raised my kids and sent them out into the world all in one piece and they come back missin' parts." :-)