I've just had this phone conversation (clockwork will appreciate this)...

He really chopped his finger off? Aaaaccckkkk!

You really don't have much faith in his other nine fingers, do you?

OH MY GOD! His hands are going to fray!

this would make a great story...



seriously, sending healing thoughts his way - tell him to take the painkillers and don't be too tough to sleep and get better.

your dad and my dad should go bowling... oh wait, they are both missing parts of their fingers.

Seriously. I know my dad's gonna get Alzheimer's or Tourrettes or Epilepsy from the amount of bashing his noggin has taken. Low overhangs call him with siren song....

I can relate - my dad cut off the end of his finger, too. He was using a jointer in his woodshop and the board broke. Now he is missing the part with the fingernail back to the knuckle. It's still in his shop buried under the sawdust somewhere.

Have you read John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany? Part of the storyline involves a shortened finger.

If your Dad only lost up to the fingernail bed, it can actually grow back perfectly normally.

(In older people, however, healing is slower)

We haven't figured out yet why 'the end of the fingernail bed' happens to be the magic line where it regrows perfectly normally instead of just healing over ... but it will be a hell of a find when we figure it out !

Mac

Mac H. said:

If your Dad only lost up to the fingernail bed, it can actually grow back perfectly normally.

(In older people, however, healing is slower)

We haven't figured out yet why 'the end of the fingernail bed' happens to be the magic line where it regrows perfectly normally instead of just healing over ... but it will be a hell of a find when we figure it out !

Mac

Click to expand...

Interesante.
Then you replicate in the cells throughout the body. Rotten tooth? Pull one out, grow a new one. You have tinnitus. We'll yank the bent hair out and let a fresh one take its place. (Hearing would probably get better then before )

Just be careful, SP! I'm pretty sure this sort of thing is genetic. My grandfather chopped of two of his fingers in his youth (his pinky is just a stub), and then when I was seven or so, my mom did the same thing. Hers they were able to sew back on though.

My ex lost his finger when he dropped a slab of granite on it and crushed it. He said it looked like hamburger, dangling on his hand by some skin.

I was going to finish my breakfast.

I work with a doctor who is missing a finger. You should hear the jokes he tells right before rectal exams.

and Ew!!

My dad had the end of one finger bitten off by his pet rabbit as a child and always tells that story, showing the scar. He never let us near rabbits. Terrifying, violent creatures

This story should please you, SP: right after high school my friend's boyfriend K. saved up a TON of money working in the office of a cabinetry company so that he could buy a super duper awesome mountain bike. It was all customized and it had fancy shifters and brakes and everything. Around the time the bike shop was finishing up with it, his coworker at the cabinetry company told him he had to go CUT WOODEN BOARDS. K. complained that he was not trained in using any of the woodworking equipment, but he was told to go do the work or else get fired. (Yes this is like five kinds of illegal.)

As you can guess, it only took five minutes for him to cut off the first joints of his right index and middle fingers. That's a heavy blow, of course. The punchline is that shifters on the fancy bike he just bought had to be worked with the TIPS of the right index and middle fingers.