My First True "The Show Must Go On" Moment!

I haven't mentioned anything about it in this forum, but I had a performance today, at a Mississippi Heritage festival at the regional park near my house. Our theatre group was doing an original, family-interactive piece about Mississippi heritage, including lots of kid participation, storytelling, costume-wearing, etc. etc. I was the storyteller, and playing guitar.

Well...we'd had a scant few rehearsals and were really needing to get together at 1:30 to set up (or 2:00 at the very latest) and get in a run through before the event opened at 3:00 (we went on at 4:00, for about an hour). At about 12:30, while Lucy & I were hanging around in the living room and she was practicing jumping from the top of the couch onto my face, my arm happened to drift up and * pop * out went my little finger into a "w"-shaped contortion. Dislocated. God Dammit! My mind racing. Can I pop it back in, myself? Something I've always heard of being done, but in my (sadly, mulitple) past occurrences, something I've never quite been able to bring myself to do. The thought of a half-assed, "check swing" in such an attempt is enough to curl my toes. I had to get to the doctor, or go in and do the performance in this condition. No, that second option was not really an option - this is in a bad position, and if I don't get it straightened out, the energy of a live stage performance could send me into shock. Really. Plus, the last thing our performance needs is for the audience to be focused on my finger. Plus-I'm supposed to be playing guitar with this thing! No, there were far too many compelling reasons for me to get into the doctor. Quick-call to the artistic director and message to his wife appraising her, and then turning to Lucy with a look in my eyes that could have only have been saying, "OK, little girl: I know that every time we ever need to get out of the house in five minutes, it takes us 30...but if you ever, ever wanted to help your daddy out in a pinch...for the love of God, be a help, not a hinderance now." For, you see, Sharon was at work.

So, getting ready to go into the doctor...Lucy was great. I was unable, in my condition, to help her get all the way dressed, or to help her get her tight shoes on, or lift her into her car seat-anything. She really seemed to get it. She was focused and helpful and we were on the road in, like, less than 10 minutes. Unfortunately, urgent care took far, far longer than it needed to. I was sitting around for at least an hour, and I was starting to get a little nauseous, along with the nervous feeling I already had about the dwindling time. Finally, to the triage, and then back to the room, and then the doctor came in. Right before 2:00. So what does he do? Sends me back to get x-rayed!! I've never had that done before in a dislocation! From that point on, I'm trying to explain to every staff person I encounter about how I am going on in a play in a little over an hour and, as they continually slow me down, eventually that at 2:15 I'm simply going to have to walk out the door, whether my finger is fixed or not. It may have been a bluff on my part, but honestly I'm not sure. There literally would have been a point at which I could have waited no more. The show must go on.

Finally, the doctor's in there at about 2:13 explaining that the x-rays showed a small fracture. Ordinarily, he'd give me a shot of painkiller and let it work for about 15 minutes, then pop it into place, THEN take another x-ray to see if the any further damage was revealed. A quick little back and forth that resulted in me making a promise to pay a followup visit to his office on Monday and then he reached forward and * POP *, I was in business. Pinky finger & ring finger on left hand taped together. Guitar? Luckily, it was a super basic little repetitive thing that only took my middle tree fingers. We raced home, I threw all my stuff in the car, including some painkillers (which I really needed, by the way), and a tongue depresser. RACED to the event and, while we were in the midst of the runthrough, I untaped the fingers and retaped the pinky onto the tongue depresser to free up my 3rd chord finger. For the rest of the day, my chords sounded a bit shitty, since I couldn't put much pressure on the side of the neck, but it was good enough for the purpose. And the show went off to a great reception. The show must go on, man, the show must go on.