Mishaps can scrum back to haunt you later in life

I AM telling you this story for a reason, so please bear with me. It was a very cold day in December 1984 (my goodness, nearly forty years ago) and I was playing rugby for Aboyne, just outside Aberdeen.

I had been in practice for only a few months and my boss, decent chap that he was, allowed me Saturday mornings off to play because he thought it was ‘“good for the business to be involved in the local community”.

Anyway, half way through the first half, I charged down a kick and felt a sharp, thoroughly disconcerting pain in my left hand.

When I looked at it, I realised I had badly dislocated a finger, to the point that it was a third shorter than it should have been.

Using my veterinary skills, I was able to successfully relocate it, after a period of 30 seconds. (I remember this because I had to count to 10 three times before I summoned up the courage to undertake the procedure.)

It was taped up for a while, and, especially in the cold, it throbbed on and off for a few months, but things heal in time.

So my point it this; that injury, which occurred nearly four decades ago, has now come back to haunt me.

The damaged joint is increasingly thickened and painful.

The finger deviates laterally more and more, so that there is an annoying centimetre gap between its tip and that of the finger adjacent to it.

And it has become less and less functional, resulting in an inability for it to form a fist and significant discomfort when carrying out simple tasks, like gripping an item or tying a suture. It happens to our pets too; the little incidents that life throws at them can return much later to cause unexpected problems.

Of course, accidents will happen but there is much that you can do to mitigate the situation.

Does that young Labrador really have to run up and down those hardwood stairs all day?

Wouldn’t a stair gate be useful?

Every extra treat adds a little more weight to be carried about; it might not seem relevant at the time, but those extra pounds will hasten the onset of arthritis.

Then there are injuries themselves; prompt, decisive, early action can save pain, function and a whole lot of expense.

Come to think of it, maybe my rapid response to my dislocation is the reason it has taken so long to cause me further issues.

Just a thought.