Being that I am no stranger to finger injuries, both benign and catastrophic, I was extremely dismayed to recently learn that two of our young protégés have cracked bones in their fingers. Kevin and Tony have been quickly improving their climbing over the past year (under our tutelage of course) only to have these injuries stop them in their tracks. I would like to wish them the speediest of recoveries and remind them to not be like me and continue climbing! Remember, do as I say, not as I do. Go work on your game with the ladies or something. Take a bit of time off and you will be back in it before you know it.
Tony and/or Kevin, if you would like to keep your spirits high for a speedy recovery please do not continue reading this post. Click here to go somewhere positive.
Here is my story about a similar injury:
I was afflicted with a similar injury 7 years ago after 2 weeks of cranking on the pockets at Wyoming’s Wild Iris. It was our last day of climbing and I was trying to climb a tweaky .12a called Limestone Cowboy or something like that. My first attempt at pulling on the very tweaky crux pocket resulted in failure and a tweaked feeling in my left middle finger. Not deterred, I tried again only to have the same move result in a horrific popping noise followed by (failure and) the inability to even move my left middle and ring fingers for two days. Upon returning home, X-Rays revealed a cracked bone in the main joint of my middle finger. I kept climbing for a few weeks, at a surprisingly high level even, before my Freshmen year of college gave me a good excuse to take some time off…for about a year.
7 years later my knuckle still makes a popping noise every time I straighten it and the joint seems permanently prone to injury.
On that uplifting note, happy 4th everyone! Hopefully you aren’t even reading this and you are out climbing.
