It could have been worse . . .

***UPDATE***

My finger is healing fine. In fact I no longer need to bandage it, and, if all goes as well as it appears, there should only be minor evidence of the accident. I am very grateful for the concern and love everyone sent my way. Thank you all.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"It could have been worse." This is an oft used saying in the parlance of sports. Of course we often use this in everyday life when evaluating a myriad of life events, tragic or otherwise. I recently have experienced this first hand. On Saturday, November 17, I was working with my brother-in-laws and my dad doing some millwork for my parents house. We were working with a tablesaw. At this point you are probably already thinking, "Stop right there. I don't want to know." Well, I had a brain cramp and found myself doing something I knew I shouldn't. I put my hand to close to the saw blade and the running blade sucked my middle finger on my right hand towards the blade. Let me say that spinning steel and human flesh are not a good mix-but you all probably knew that already; so did I. And I sure do now.
The blade nicked the end of my finger. My first thought, even before looking at my finger was, "this is not a good thing." Not ouch! It was actually surreal. It took me a moment to fully realize what had just happened. I'd heard how others had these horrific accidents. Now I had joined this club of fools. Well, as the saying goes, "it could have been worse." My finger is sore. It will leave a nice scar. But I still have a complete finger. When it heals it won't be pretty, but it won't affect me in any way. And nobody will really even notice. Again "it could have been worse."

***UPDATE***

I had a hand specialists' PA look at my finger yesterday at the AF Hospital and he told me it looked great and will heal very nicely. That was good news. There never was anything to suture and it wasn't deep enough to reach the bone. Plus the nail is fully intact.
I saw a news piece this morning on The Today Show about a nine year-old boy with a rare leg condition which has taken away his ability to walk. Doctors told him things would only get worse. The options were to do nothing or to have the leg amputated. This brave boy chose to have his leg amputated. What courage that took. I realized shortly after the accident and then again this morning how forunate I am in comparison. Sure, temporarily I am having to use my left hand; a minor inconvenience. Eating is more difficult. Getting dressed is harder. And it seems as though I am continually giving everybody the 'bird.' But as I already mentioned, this is temporary. My last post was about the things I am grateful for. I am grateful that I am healthy and that it wasn't worse.