my brother's finger

My brother Sean, a professional cellist, sliced one of his pinky fingers open two days ago. I learned of this through a text message he sent yesterday. He had to go to the ER, where he received seven stitches and was told to keep the finger dry during showers, etc. The finger-slicing occurred while Sean was washing dishes: his hand was inside a glass when, for whatever reason, the glass decided to break. The pinky was cut deeply-- deeply enough to cause some major bleeding. At that point, Sean wasn't sure whether the cut had reached bone.

The docs told Sean not to worry: the cut was merely a flesh wound; no bone or tendon had been affected. Sean also noted that, from a cellist's point of view, this was the best possible finger to injure: the pinky of his bowing hand. The incident occurred on Friday; Sean had two gigs on Saturday, which I assume he performed successfully. He told me that he spent much of Friday feeling nauseous because of how horrible the wound looked and how badly it had been bleeding. (I'm the sort of person who reacts with clinical fascination to his own injuries, so I find such nausea hard to relate to.)

Sean gets his stitches out in a little more than a week. After that, he'll probably have to make sure the finger heals properly, in a way that doesn't produce too much tightness. All in all, this accident could have been a lot worse. I'm glad he's OK.


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