When you get a chance for an overnight trip with your wife, no kids, a nice resort, great food, you take it.
And if your finger suddenly snaps into an unnatural position while getting dressed for dinner, your first thought is: Please, tell me I don’t have to cut this trip short!
At least that was my first thought, five hours into our alone weekend.
I held up my finger, with the tip dangling at an unnatural 90 degree droop. It didn’t hurt but I’m sure it would soon.
“You’ve got to go to the hospital,” my wife said.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” I said, unable to lift the tip of my middle finger. At least it was my left hand, I thought.
“Are you kidding me?”
Fortunately, my youngest daughter’s best friend’s mom – follow that? – is an orthopedic physician’s assistant, so we FaceTimed her. “You tore your distal tendon,” she said.
“It doesn’t hurt,” I said.
“That means you tore it cleanly. Good job!”
“What do I do?”
“Splint it, and go to a hand surgeon on Monday.”
No splints in the first aid kit or at the front desk. But my wife had a brilliant idea: a spoon. So with a demitasse spoon taped around my finger, the bowl upside down in my palm, we went to dinner.
And it was an amazing night.
It was also so emblematic of my journey as a working parent.
I could have let a distal tendon ruin my dinner – and our next day away – or I could adapt.
I didn’t order something that needed to be cut with a sharp knife. I got some fish, which I forked around with my right hand. Same thing with breakfast and lunch the next day.
I could still read my book and talk with my wife. We could still take a walk, though the spoon made my left hand colder than my right!
My wife drove us home – driving with a spoon seemed like it would be dangerous or at least absurd to explain if I got pulled over.
The lesson was clear.
Working parenting is all about adapting and making compromises. It’s why I’m forever repeating this phrase to myself: “Perfect is the enemy of good.”
Do I think this mishap taught my kids anything? Hopefully just to press on.
They laughed at the spoon. So dad doesn’t take himself too serious, but they knew that.
I skied the next day with one of them. So maybe dad puts things in perspective – I figured it couldn’t get any worse.
I can still work. Typing is a bit more typo prone, particularly hitting ‘d’s and ‘e’s, but that’s a nuisance unique to what I do.
I went on with my life, without too much complaint. Now just don’t ask them about the head cold I’ve had this week. That’s a real impediment!
