06/29/2004 12:55AM

My ability to do any programming is going to be placed on hold for a few weeks. I was working on my car this morning finishing up a timing chain replacement and while I was under the car getting the power steering pump back into place the engine slid on the jack and crushed my right hand. 25 stitches to kind of put back together my middle finger and reattach part of it to my palm. This has resulted in tendons no longer being connected and nerves being severed, so not able to move the finger anymore. The nerve being cut causes the body to interpret the lack of signal from the nerve as the finger no longer being there and that gets processed as a damned lot of pain.

I do have photos if anyone is wanting to see what it looks like. It's nauseating to see but for some damned reason it is interesting to look at.

Moving the mouse and clicking the buttons with my left hand is not all that easy to do. As it turns out a persons brain actually wants to do everything as an exact mirror of what the right hand did. I have to put some crazy amount of concentration into moving the mouse to move it in the right direction.

I will do as much as I am able to. Discomfort being one of the things that is going to limit my ability but the thing that is going to make the biggest impact is frustration. The frustration is going to come from having to learn how to use the mouse with my left hand and eventually learning to type with a middle finger that has zero feeling and is not going to move properly if at all. The expectation is that the finger is probably not going to move when my brain tells it to.

I don't give up so this is only going to slow down development. It is not going to end it.

There are a few requests I have for you guys/gals.

• Please, Please, Please, be patient. I may or may not come across as being bothered or annoyed, please do not take it personally. I assure you this will be frustration with myself and it is spilling over.
• If I get frustrated and it can be seen in my responses to people make sure to put me in my place, let me know if you think I am being an ass in some manner. The best help I could get is to be reminded of the things I have said in this discussion.
• Push me to keep working. I know I didn't loose an arm or anything like that for sure. This injury is going to make me have to relearn how to do a lot of things. It's not only my middle finger that is effected, everything in a persons hand is a very complex machine and if one tooth on one gear in that machine breaks it messes up the entire machine.

Thanks for your patience and understanding.

--Kevin Schlosser

Copied first 1/2 of this message from a response to an issue. I finished writing the second 1/2 and editing it to fix typos and other issues at 1:20AM. 25 minutes it has taken me to write 1/2 of this.

injury happened at ~7:00AM on 06/28/2024