Eventful days always make me appreciate the mostly un-eventful days i have.
Today was an eventful day.  (I will say up front, please overlook any typos, as you will soon understand).

I decided recently that I wanted to try to fun in a 5k (3 miles)race on Thanksgiving.  So, better start training.  Yesterday I walked/ran 2 miles in morning and 2 miles in evening.  So this morning I started out again across the big field behind our house.  I was not 2 minutes into the run, when I stumbled over a rock, could not regain my balance and went down.  I imagine I looked like a baseball player sliding into home...arms and hands out stretched.  When I stopped, I surveyed the damaged and realized my left ring finger was starting ot swell and oddly bent.  I immediately picked myself up and headed back to the house with my hand elevated.  I walked in the back door, told the boys I was going to Urgent Care and then left.  I was at Urgent Care within 15 minutes.

They got me back fairly quickly.  The PA came in, looked for a few minutes and walked out into the hall and loudly announced that an xray needs to be taken.  They took me back.  They carefullly took xrays.  The technician took a look to make sure they came out.  Then as we walked out of the room, she told me "it does not look pretty...just to warn you."

A spiral fracture or oblique fracture - are the two terms I heard.  After a few minutes they told me they were going to send me to the hospital to see the surgeon on call.  Then they changed plans and got me in to see an ortho this afternoon.  (The PA was just amazing..making all the calls, doing paperwork, etc.  I told him how much I appreciated him an dhe said he thinks so many in the field today forget what it is like to be the patient.  He did not want me to sit in the ER for who knows how long and then maybe still get referred bakck to ortho.)   They gave me a nerve block and then was able to reset my finger.

I went to the ortho and as the PA predicted...surgery.  The fracture is very unstable so splinting will not fix the finger.  I go in on Thurs at 1:30 for 'a few screws and maybe a plate'.  Should be 3 hours from when I get out of the car until I get back in the car.  The fingers will be immobilized 5 days, 10 at the latest.  Then it is lots of movement and exercises.  I have it splinted right now and as of yet, have not had to take any pain meds.  Tomorrow might be a different story.

Surprisingly, this whole ordeal has not bummed me out at all.  Instead, I have been filled with lots of thankfulness.
Thankful that I did not have on my wedding ring (it would have certainly turned finger blue and had to be cut off, not to mention how much worse break could have been)
Thankful that it is the left hand and not my dominant right hand.
Thankful I was only 200 yards from the house and not at the end of the field, a mile away
Thankful it was dirt and not road - where I could have dealt with more road rash.
Thankful that it was only a finger and not a wrist, elbow, shoulder, knee or hip - I am not too impaired with just a finger.
Thankful that I will meet my $3,000 deductible only 2 months into my calendar year (if anything else happens over the next 10 months...covered!)

After I got home from Urgent Care my shoulder started to get stiff...the shoulder where I was hainvg AC joint issues that my chiro worked on 2 weeks ago.  Thankful that I see him on Tuesdays (today).  After my ortho appt i stopped by there and sure enough, I jammed up my left shoulder when I fell...he worked it again and told me the importance of keeping it moving and exercises.

I texted my sister throughout the ordeal and she told me I have never been the most coordinated runner.  I told her i chased a tennis ball around for years and did pretty good.  Then I got to thinking about it. When I was in 4th grade I was racing a girl and tripped and fell, breaking my collar bone.  When I was 8 months pregnant with B, I was running up stairs and tripped and broke my wrist.  So this is my third running injury.....and obviously the worst to date.

The next few days for me will probably be pretty quiet..maybe lots of books and movies..hopefully boys pulling some of the weight.

So just for my personal record, I have put some pictures below, not too graphic, but if you don't like stuff like that, don't scroll any further down.

I could not get the xray photo to enlarge much without being too grainy...but the break can be seen on the left slide, just above the knuckle angled from right down to left. This is before they did a reduction/reset the finger.

This is one I snapped as I was heading out the door to Urgent Care.  You can see the ackward bend just above the knuckle.  They were able to straighten it enough that it did not look obviously deformed.