Slight of Hand and Sleight-of-Hand

I slighted my hand when I was only four. The youngest of five, I was racing out the storm door behind my brothers and sisters one night, but instead of waiting to catch the door properly, I thought I could stop it with my hand. My entire hand plunged through the glass, shattering the pane into a thousand pieces, cutting and bruising my hand in multiple places, and breaking my little finger. Mom set it on a popsicle stick and called it good enough. (By the time you have five, you don’t run to the emergency department for every small distress, and money was scarce in those days.) Yes, my slight hand was slighted.  😦Over the next decades, my little finger began to drift to the right, I suppose because it never healed perfectly straight and I put constant pressure on it playing the piano. For a few decades, it just made me able to reach more than an octave, and I liked that! However, in my fifties the drift became more pronounced, because after the kids grew up I started writing (typing) for hours every day. Typing exacerbated the problem; I tapped the keys with the left side of my finger, slowly pushing it further and further out of alignment.  Eventually, my pinkie began to develop arthritis and sometimes hurt.

About ten years ago, I had a hand surgeon look at it, but at that time he told me  as long as I wanted to play the piano and type, I should leave it alone. However, just a few weeks ago, my ophthalmologist told me that he’d had surgery on both his thumbs and 2 fingers and was very pleased with the result! So, last week I went for a second opinion with this doctor’s surgeon. Dr. Naum said he could clean out the joint and straighten my finger without limiting any of my current activities.

That’s where Dr. Naum’s sleight-of-hand comes in! According to Merriam-Webster, “sleight-of-hand” can mean “skill and dexterity in conjuring tricks,” and if the operation goes successfully, I will say that’s a very clever trick he’s executed with great skill! This afternoon I’m going to have the surgery done. If I can figure out how to take a photo of my hand when I get home, I’ll add that, and in six weeks, I’ll hopefully be able to show you the finished product if all goes well by God’s grace.

Meanwhile, I’ve been able to write just a few posts ahead, so if I don’t post much until mid-May, know it’s because I can’t type much! April is National Poetry Writing Month, and I may write poems or share poems with more enthusiasm than usual, given that poetry takes fewer words to express ideas! Perhaps a slight hand can do a little sleight-of-hand.  🙂  Also, if you have any poems you’d like to share, please feel free! My email is:  kathrynwarmstrong@gmail.com

Blessings!

Kathi

P.S.—Some of us may have broken hearts that were sleighted years ago and never healed right. If you are suffering from an old injury that is causing you pain today, know that God is the Great Physician. He can do what others can’t (no matter how much they love us or may try, like my dear mother, who did the best she could). God is in the business of mending hearts, even if he sometimes has to re-break a crooked bone to set us straight!

“Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice” (Psalm 51:8)

“He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds” (Psalm 147:3).