At some point my right hand started to get tender to the touch and downright painful during a hand shake. As time passed and the pain level increased, a noticeable protrusion from the side of my hand appeared and seemed to be getting larger. I began to worry. I could not think of a time where I incurred an injury which was even more cause for concern. Eventually I made the reluctant decision to make an appointment with my doctor to see if he could identify the issue.
I had gone to the doctor on a Friday afternoon which resulted in a quick trip to the hospital for X-Rays of the offending area. To my surprise I received a phone call late that night from my doctor who stated “You have foreign objects in your hand and we need a surgeon to take a look at it.” I was baffled as to what this could be and began to wonder just what they could be. The common thought among friends was that I had somehow been invaded by alien spawn during a recent visit. Although that would have been an excellent outcome, I knew that was not the case.
Another set of X-rays were taken while I was visiting with the surgeon a week later which confirmed the presence of something odd and in numerous deposits within that side of my hand. She was quick to decide that surgery would be required. Her next words were somewhat lost on me as she explained in a very matter of fact manner that she was 99% sure that the surgery would cause considerable nerve damage and 70% sure that I would not regain the use of the damaged nerves after surgery. For some reason, I did not take her prediction very seriously.
It was a couple of days before the surgery when I was reviewing some of my social media content. I was viewing a video of myself that I had watched countless time before when I suddenly had a sickening felling. The kind of feeling you get when you realize that you’ve done something to yourself that was preventable and is of a magnitude that could change your life.
In the previous two years I had spoken to hundreds of people about my products whether it be one on one meetings or during my travels to the numerous tactical conferences that I had attended. Every time that I speak with people about the products I would demonstrate the strength of the magnets that reside in each of them. One of the methods that I would use would be to pound my hand, my hand, onto the product with significant force to convey the holding power to the person observing. Typically I would do this three times per demo which translates into a whole ladda hits to the hand. Once that sickening feeling came over me I began to remember the times at conferences where my hits would begin to hurt. One, two, sometimes three day events would see hundreds of people stopping at my booth, all of which would get this particular demonstration. The pain didn’t stop me from doing it of course as the demonstrations must go on! I mistakenly thought however that the pain and discomfort that I was inducing was just that and not that I was causing actual physical damage to my hand. To put this into perspective, even if I only spoke with a mere one hundred people per day that would translate into 300 impacts to the side of my hand per day, 600 in two days, and 900 times at a three day event! With that being said, what I was actually doing was causing fractures in my hand which over time and with increasing quantity due to the repeated impacts, turned into bone separation resulting in fragments of said bone floating away and into my hand and its now very painful nerves. Or Alien Spawn.
The surgery went well I was told by the nurse who woke me up. I could see nothing but a bandaged hand at that point. I was going to miss work for a few days while I healed and since I carried a variety of weapons when at work I would need to prove proficiency in their manipulation before I would be allowed to return. After a few days of rest I began to practice manipulating a firearm with my hand while it was still in its bandaged state which caused considerable pain. Knowing that I was causing overtime at work because of my absence I pushed through the pain in hopes to return as quickly as possible. Unfortunately for me, and what I failed to realize at the time due to the bandage still covering my hand, the pain that I was experiencing on every squeeze of my hand was not the result of the nerve damage I incurred but rather it was me ripping my stitches apart. I practiced this for a week with increasing pain until my first follow up appointment with the occupational health worker. When the bandage was removed it revealed a small but very angry wound that was trying its best to heal but had been hindered by my efforts to return to work. As a consequence of my efforts I was given a few more weeks of rehab to heal. Time passed, it healed with negligible long term effects, and I returned to work a little worse for wear.
In the end the bad news was that I broke bones in my hand demonstrating the strength of the magnets in my products. The good news was that I broke bones in my hand demonstrating how strong the magnets are in my products!
Click the link below to see the video that gave me that sickening feeling:)
