Has Anyone Seen My Finger?

                                                 

    On October 28, 1975, at the 2 story white stucco house on the West side of the street, across from the Fairview High school.  I was laying carpet in my sister’s second story bedroom. When I had a malfunction with the carpet knife.
    It was a curved bladed carpet knife that had a folding locking blade. The knife had been abused a little. It looks like the back of the knife had been used to pry something up. It was all roughed up.

                                              I still own the knife.
     I was laying a snow white shag carpet in my sister’s bedroom, when the knife snagged on the carpet fibers on a backstroke and snapped closed on my hand. Cutting through the knuckle closest to the tip of my longest finger on my right hand. Severing the end off. I quickly removed my tee shirt and wrapped my hand with it while it held the now detached end my finger in its palm. I found my sister who was playing in the driveway of the house next door (which we also owned). She and I loaded into my car, which I had not yet finished restoring. (The 69 VW Beatle) and drove myself to the hospital which was only a few blocks away, Kelly turned, 14 years old, on that day.
    My mother was the chief administrator of the hospital, and on this particular day she was also a patient. She had a case of pneumonia, and had been admitted the day before.      When I arrived my sister went off to find our mother, and I was taken to a surgical room. The surgeon on duty worked for about 3 hours on my hand to reattach my finger. He was fairly successful. I have feeling  in it, and it has good movement, but he couldn’t reattach the top tendon though, and now the tip of my finger droops, even at full extension.
    My sister found my mothers room and told her that I had cut my finger off. Well you can imagine the panic my mother felt after receiving this bit of news. She left her sickbed and came to find me. We were still in the surgical room when she caught up with me.
    This room had a large observation window. I was sitting on a stool with my back to the window and my hand on the table, cradled in a pile of bloody gauze. The doctor was sitting across the table working on my finger, when my mother came into the room. She wasn’t a happy camper.  But there was nothing she could really do but go back to her room and her sickbed.
     My sister never quite forgave me for ruining her birthday. I don’t remember my father’s involvement in the whole incident. It has been 30 something years since the incident.