Tuna Fishing and The Tale Of The Ruined Thumb

As detailed here, my son took me down and I wound up hurting my thumb.  How bad?  I'm having surgery on Friday to repair the damage.  Seems my fall resulted in my tearing a ligament in the thumb.  Class three tear.  If you're gonna do damage, might as well do it right.  Normally, this would be nothing more than a nuisance but I'm going tuna fishing tomorrow and the boats have been hauling in the fish so the odds are in my favor that I'll be working the lines and pushing my luck with the thumb.

Of course, to quote my surgeon "you already fucked the thumb up, can't do more damage to the ligament now so bring me some steaks."

Gotta love the guy for that.




In the interim, the doc gave me a brace to keep the thumb stable and I figure it might actually be wearable while I'm fishing so it might not be so painful. 

When I walked in the door, my kids saw the brace and came running over to me.  My daughter stopped short of hugging me, out of fear of hurting me, and asked why I was wearing the brace.  I knelt down and told her that my thumb was worse than I thought and I am going to need to have surgery to fix it.  Big tears filled her eyes and she stared at me with a look of horror mixed with sorrow.  She suddenly started sobbing and I wrapped my arms around her and asked her why she was crying.

"B...be....because I'm concerned" she sobbed.

I explained that I will be in and out of the hospital before she gets back from camp and the only difference will be a cast on my arm instead of the brace.  She was distraught.  She's afraid something horrible will befall me.  She's got all the concerns that a mature, brilliant 7 year old should have and it touched my heart to see her so concerned. 

I took her into my room and explained that the cast is the worst part of it.  The surgery will last an hour or two and then I'll have a cast on for 8 weeks and then I'll need physical therapy for 8 more weeks and I went on about how I'll need her to sign my cast and make sure it looks cool.  She started crying again and I asked her why she was crying now and she said "you won't be able to swim with us.  Who's going to ride the waves with me in Montauk?"

I hadn't thought about that.  My end of summer ritual in Montauk is going to suck ass now. 

I almost cried.

I finally convinced her that I'll be fine and that there's a good chance I'll get a cast that is waterproof and I also explained that there's still a slight chance that I won't need the surgery, that the MRI will come back with a class 1 or 2 tear.

Then my son came in the room.  He had a serious look on his face.  I asked him if he was worried about me too.  He said "no.  Dad?  Did that happen when I was fighting you up?"

I told him that yes, indeed, when he took me down I hurt my thumb.

Suddenly, his eyes went wide. 

"You mean I won?"

He thrust his hands in the air and ran into the living room shouting "MOM. I beat dad up.  He needs surgery because of me.  Feel my muscles, I'm so strong."

Tomorrow is tuna day.  I'll give details and, hopefully, links to the catch on Thursday and I will, definitely, have pics of me using my son as bait.