I broke my thumb this summer while mowing my lawn. Yes, it is possible to break your thumb while mowing your lawn. Here’s how I managed to do it.
I wasn’t paying attention when I turned the mower around after mowing a strip of my backyard lawn. I thought I was stepping on landscape rock. Instead, I stepped into a window well and down I went. It was quite embarrassing. If you fall into a window well, one would think you’d get a decent injury, like breaking your leg. Or at least your arm. But no. I broke my thumb.
“How did you do this?” the nurse practitioner at Kaiser urgent care asked.
“I fell into a window well,” I said sheepishly, holding my bloodied thumb.
“You fell into a window well?! And you hurt your thumb?!” smirked the otherwise very professional NP.
I described the physics of how one can injure precisely one thumb while falling into a window well.
“We’ll have to get it X rayed,” he said, staring at it.
“X rayed?” I was surprised. Up to this point it hadn’t dawned on me that it might be broken.
My wife Patti, who was with me and who is also an otherwise very professional nurse practitioner, burst out laughing at the thought that I may have actually broken my thumb while falling into a window well.
“Great,” I thought. “Now I have two snarky NPs in the room.”
The X ray was duly performed and a fracture confirmed. After the NP – now in full professional mode – treated it, I walked out of urgent care with my right thumb covered in so much gauze I could use it for a wiffle ball bat.
On the drive home the thought came to me, “Huh, this isn’t the only time I’ve injured myself while doing simple projects.” There was the back injury while digging dirt and the leg injury from the chain saw…. “But,” I thought, “I’ve never hurt myself while working on my men’s team ministry team.”
It’s been several months now since I broke my thumb in that window well. The bone has healed and a new thumbnail has almost completely grown back. It’s still not quite normal looking yet, but it’s getting there. Pretty soon I’ll be able to trim it.
So now I have a question. Several hundred of you, my readers, serve widows, widowers and single parents on men’s team ministry teams. I’m wondering if any of you have ever been injured while doing so. I haven’t received any reports of injuries. But I’d like to know if you have been hurt. It would be remarkable – and perhaps an indication of the Lord’s protection – if, over the last fifteen years, no one has been injured. Especially if you’re an all thumbs – so to speak – kind of guy like I am. 🙂
So if you’ve been hurt in any way while serving your care receiver, let me know by responding below.
[Not an attorney spokesperson.]
This post first appeared in NewCommandment.org.
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3 thoughts on “Have You Been Injured While Doing Men’s Team Ministry?”
Over the years, having worked with three different care receivers, I’ve never experienced an injury.
Only blisters
So far I’ve had exactly one response and it was by email. Here’s some of what he said, “In the years we have been doing this ministry we have only had very minor incidents and really nothing to mention.”
If this is all I get, it’s really pretty amazing. PTL!