Did I tell you about the time I broke my finger?

It's been just about 4 years now.

One pleasant Sunday in November, I was long lining The Mare at a walk.  Being a clod, I tripped and fell.  Forgetting that The Mare isn't one to take off in such circumstances, I held tight to the lines as I fell.  The Mare, not realizing anything had happened, blithely continued walking.  The right line, which was being held like normal reins between my ring finger and pinky, pulled tight and crunched my ring finger.  I get up and am like, darnit, that's annoying, dunno if it's broken or dislocated, but now I have to go to a doctor.

So The Mare got put away and I got taken to an urgent care place called Reddy Care (because it's run by Dr. Reddy... the man was born to do urgent care!).  Did x-rays, and Dr. Reddy comes in, shows me the x-rays, and informs me that I'm probably going to need surgery and I need to see a hand surgeon ASAP.  What, wait?  Seriously?

Yup, that's my proximal phalanx (aka the long pastern bone) in 3 pieces.  The next morning I get to work, tell the other people I might have to go, and call the hand surgeon we refer to.  They told me to come on over, so off I went.  They did more x-rays and the tech said "wow, I've never seen a finger broken like that before!"  If you're gonna do it, do it right.

The doctor gave me two options, cast it or surgery.  He recommended surgery because I'd be able to start moving it pretty much immediately, and stiffness and loss of motion is a big concern.  So I went with the surgery.

The next day, I had three little bitty screws put in.

This is what it looked like after the bandage was taken off a couple days after surgery..

Healing was pretty straightforward.  I went to physical therapy for a few weeks where I never did the home exercises but every time I went back it was improving anyway.

Now it's pretty much 100%.  I can't quite straighten it completely on my own and I can't crack the knuckle, but those things don't really matter, so it's all good.

 Here's what my finger looks like now:

So yeah.  That's the story of my broken finger.

And in case you were wondering, it was 6 months later that I broke my leg and had surgery on it, and 2 months after that that I had surgery on my other leg to fix my ACL.  So in about 8 months, I had surgery on 3 out of 4 limbs.  You're probably wondering if I bubble wrapped my fourth limb (left arm), because that's quite an orthopedic injury streak.  I did not, and thus far my remaining limb has remained intact.  I think it's safe because back in 6th grade gym class we were playing soccer and I was stuck as goalie.  The ball came at me, I stopped it with my hands, looked down, and my left pinky was rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise.  The ball snapped it off the growth plate, so it was broken and dislocated.  So really, my left arm had been struck by the curse, it was just way ahead of the curve.

Poor Mare has gotten a bad rap with my broken finger and leg..  None of it was her fault.  Both accidents were a combination of bad luck and my stupidity.  I don't blame her at all for it.