Opposable Thumbs and Other Curious Tales

For the last five minutes I have been wasting time trying to think of some sort of animal with fingers and no thumbs. For a minute I thought apes had no opposable thumbs. I was going to compare myself to an ape. But Wikipedia to the rescue, because I would have looked really dumb for my claim to ape-ality. Because what do you know? Most primates have opposable thumbs. I blame my biology teacher for this lack of knowledge and this winding, non-funny introduction.

Anyway, I'm living the dream here in my Bledsoe Boot--for stress fractures of the leg-- and without the use of my right thumb for pinching motions. But no worries because when I was looking for a picture to steal of the Bledsoe Boot I read that, "The Bledsoe PTB Boot is designed as a flexible and attractive alternative to casting for the mid-tibia or fibula to mid-foot area while providing patella tendon bearing support." Attractive indeed. You should hear all the wolf-whistles I get these days as I stub around town. I did decide not to steal a picture though. You'll just have to imagine this very attractive hooker-style boot with lots of velcro. Although it has much less of a heel than most hooker boots and makes me feel like Captain Long John Silver.

I bet you're wondering how you too can acquire a Bledsoe boot. (I was pretty sure the doctor was calling it a "Blood Cell Boot" and I was thinking that perhaps it would inject something into my blood cells that healed bones, but really it's Bledsoe. I understand completely now.) Well, run lots of miles and then one week before your scheduled one and only marathon develop an acutely aching pain in your foot. Run the marathon anyway. And then because you are stubborn, and it's just a bone anyway, and you already paid the dang money and organized the team, run the Wasatch Back Relay. I know, I brought this on myself. Mike says it's because the human body wasn't meant to run that far. I say it's because my bones have yet to learn who's in charge here.

As for my opposable thumbs injury, I was playing volleyball on the Fourth of July, at my uncle's, in my boot, when my arm started to hurt from all the amazing aces I was hitting. I decided to try and serve with my thumb. That didn't work out so well for me. So for a few days my thumb has been unable to reach my fingers. It's getting better now, but for awhile there I couldn't do anything useful. That's kind of like usual, but a little more annoying.

Now everything is back to normal. Except the boot thing. We had a great fourth too. I'll post soon about how we celebrated (besides trying to play volleyball) the annual tribute to pyromaniacs everywhere.