When The Smoke Clears

Ok...I promised the thumb story a few days ago, so here goes. As those of you who know me know, I had my first seizure on March 11, 2004. As this is a day that will forever live in infamy in my life, I feel I should celebrate/mourn it every year. So around came March 11, 2005. A Friday. My parents had been here the entire week visiting, and that Friday night was their last in town. It was also the first day that my friend, Mary Beth, became a civilian. So three reasons to celebrate. And, for those of you who know me, you know that means to go out and have a few drinks. I had already announced to my parents that I was getting drunk that night. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. So instead of drinking beer, as I usually do, I went straight for the dirty martinis. The evening started around 6:30-ish? Dinner time, where we ate and drank with Mary Beth.

We ended up spending the rest of the evening at an Irish pub in Virginia Beach named Keagan's. Throughout that week and the ones prior, this place had become a favorite of mine. It was close to home, had good food, good beer, good people, good entertainment....the works. And we had been there enough that we (Becca and myself, along with Mama and Papa that week) knew most of the bartenders by then, at least by name. And the musician that night - James. Around 10:30-ish that night, Becca and I were sitting at the bar, backs to the bar, facing the stage so we could sing along to the Irish tunes. Mind you, I had consumed several dirty martinis by this point, but they had been spaced out. This fact, combined with my kick-ass tolerance (love you, liver), meant that at this particular point in time, I had just crossed over the bridge from Buzzed Town to Drunkville. I twisted around on my bar stool to get my glass off of the bar for a sip. The bar stool decided to twist/jerk with me, and somehow managed to flip out from under me. Truly, it had nothing to do with my alcohol intake. Becca, these two people sitting next to me that I'd been talking to, and the bartender, Drew, will all attest to that. I didn't even make it all the way around to my glass. In the natural-human-jerk-reaction, my hands went down behind me to catch myself. I ended up landing on my fists. My right thumb hurt like hell and swelled up rather quickly. Nothing that a lot more dirty martinis and some ice couldn't handle that night. Again, those of you who know me know that if I had just drunkenly fallen off of the stool, I'd say as much. It was very bizarre.

But by Saturday evening, I was starting to worry that I had broken the tip of my right thumb. It was still swollen, black and blue, and tingled to the touch. I could also almost bend it in this very unnatural way. So I went to sick call on base on Monday morning, they did an x-ray, and it turned out that I was right - I had broken my thumb horizontally all the way across my thumb around my nail bed. So it is now April 14th, and I still have this stupid splint on my thumb. And it will probably still be on for a few more weeks. It was a pretty big break. And I think I set myself back a few days by overdoing it when I moved. I wasn't supposed to lift anything, but that just wasn't feasible.

So that's my story, and I'm stickin' to it. And the moral of the story? If you are ever sitting on a stool, and you'd like to pick up something that's behind you, stand up, turn around, grab it, turn back around, and sit back down. Any questions?