HEALTH
RICHARD BERCUSON Get a grip!
Sometimes you’ve got to hand it to people. Sometimes not. Recently I shook hands with a colleague who is a shot-put athlete (shot-put person?
Shot-putterer?). His hands are larger, but his grip nearly had me convulsing. (“ Hey, Jack, how are you… aieeeeeeeee!”) I mention this because for much of
this past summer I had a sore thumb. More precisely, the base of the thumb. For those with a terminology bent, I probably strained either the extensor pollicis longus or its cousin, the brevis. Haven’t a clue how this happened. Thanks for your concern, but no, the
injury is not debilitating. It has not prevented me from vacuuming. It has, however, made gripping certain beverage bottles uncomfortable. And holding the neck of my guitar to play either of the chords I know has been a little tough. Still, not for a moment have I
contemplated going all-Spanish on my hand, which is not insured. Let me explain. Last spring, two
desperately poor Spanish fellows lopped off their own hands to claim insurance money. One said it was from a car accident, and the other a chain saw. Neither got a cent because each did too clean a job. It was clearly fraud, according to medical experts and insurance investigators. This raised a number of questions, not the
least of which being, what were the ding-dong pills they took when they were contemplating the act? Or, would it not have made more sense to
just behead themselves since that’s the body part they weren’t using much anyway? My own injury got me to thinking. I’ve
really given my hands very little respect over the years. I’ve never put either through a training regime of any sort. (This is quite unlike the Spanish chaps, who pretty much gave up on theirs.) If I had, would I develop a steel-like
grip like Jack’s? Would my slight yet nimble hands develop into bear-like paws that could swallow the hands of those I shake and send them reeling? (“ Good grief, Bercuson’s
8 BOUNDER MAGAZINE
continued on page 32
www.bounder.ca
aieeeeeee!
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