Yesterday I made the mistake of injecting myself with my Copaxone autoinject device without first pulling the top cap off, which itself removes the cap from the syringe. When the mistake is realized and one removes the cap after the fact, the syringe proceeds to squirt its contents in whatever direction the device happens to be pointed--on the floor for instance, or the curtains, on the dog, in the simmering pot of soup, or in ones own eye, and so on.
This is not an isolated instance for me, but falls very securely into the parameters of my personal norm. What was new, however, was that I tried to stop the gushing stream of Copaxone with my thumb, which resulted quite naturally (though my mind had not grasped it beforehand) in the impaling of my thumb on the needle protruding from the tip of the autoinject device.
The result of the above miscalculations added together was the injection not of my arm, not of my stomach, not of my back or my leg, but of my thumb with Copaxone. This is not a thing that is recommended in any of the literature that I have so far seen.
Nonetheless, some of the greatest discoveries of science and medicine have been the products of the purest sort of accident, and it is for this reason that I am now convinced that my thumb has never felt better nor more healthy in all its long life. It has become, in short, an amazing thumb--admittedly a little tender where it had been punctured, yet otherwise (and as a result, I believe) a thumb that is superior to perhaps 90 percent of all the thumbs in the world.
By faith--for I have no proving MRI or tissue sections--but by faith, and by the evidence of the thumb's motion and mood, I am convinced that this diminutive part of me, at the very least, is completely devoid of disease. It has become, quite miraculously, quite suddenly, the thumb I used to know, the thumb of my youth, a healthy, functional, honorable thumb. Were it attached to an equally competent body and brain, I'd be 30 again, or perhaps even 25.
Please do not imagine, dear reader, that the moral dimensions of this happy accident have escaped my notice. Every great boon comes with a great burden--to whit, shall I enjoy my thumb from here forward in the essential vein of a gift, providential to my person alone, or shall I donate my thumb to medical science in hopes that a cure for all might be gleaned from the chemistry of its revival?
So does my struggle continue and remain upon me, in body and soul, in heart and in mind. And most of all in thumb.
1 comment:
Thank you for giving me an enormous laugh today. But here's a tip.
If you've forgotten to remove the cap and released the trigger, DO NOT remove the cap. Instead unscrew the autoject, recock the mechanism, and start over.
No loss of liquid gold and certainly no impaled thumbs. Now don't go getting any crazy ideas about enriching any other body parts to match your miraculous thumb. The thought of it is.....ouch!
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