Life with 1 1/2 hands

After burning my fingers pretty badly last night, I was pretty well useless for the remainder of the evening for one reason and another, mostly pain related. I did not think the full implications of my hand looking like this:

In the background, my office

Yes, my fingers are covered in duct tape (there is gauze between my fingers and the tape), and yes they are taped together. I found a minimally painful position and we just duct taped them into place. I changed the dressing this morning, but it worked so well I just taped them back together. As it turns out, the  main portion of the burns are completely insensitive now--a lot of the pain was probably the nerves dying screams, but the edges, where it is less burned, sting and burn when touched  (or just, whenever).

Now, I've be injury prone over the years. I have experience working around sprained wrists, sprained ankles, non-functioning balance systems. A couple of fingers out of commission should be a breeze, right? Nope. Turns out I use my left hand a lot. Typing, carrying things, putting my hair up all require  two hands. I don't think I can cook and I definitely can't do dishes one handed. One thing I was not anticipating is that it makes driving...tricky. I learned to drive in a standard transmission car, and have never gotten out of the habit of using my left hand to control the wheel, and my right hand to do everything else. It feels weird to steer with my right hand.

While it doesn't inhibit my writing-writing, or my study abilities, I feel like this happened at an inopportune time. However, I'm going to take it as a good omen. A lot of good things in my life have been preceded by something unpleasant. Four days until the qualifier!