I’m going to talk frankly about the injury here, and there are images and video at the end of the page. If that sort of thing makes you queasy, turn back now.

---

I’m not exactly sure how it happened, mechanically, but somehow I managed to close the car door on my left index finger.

The good news, I suppose, is this: if you had asked me to imagine what it would feel like to slam my finger in a car door, I would have imagined a worse pain than what I actually experienced. Even so, the shock turned out to be enough to make me pass out a few minutes later.

Once I got home and cleaned up, it seemed that there was more good news: I had a weird flap of skin sticking out from the end of my fingernail - my nail bed had essentially exploded under the pressure - but otherwise my finger looked completely normal. No broken bones or… missing bits.

I hoped that the weird flap of skin would just dry up and fall off, but that very much did not happen. Over the following days it filled with blood, then started to heal and inflate further while still sticking out the end of my fingernail. It looked horrendous and felt bizarre - sensations from it were nervy and still felt like they originated from under my nail. I kept it covered and more or less tried to ignore it (I had a lot of other stuff going on), but after about a week it was clear that it wasn’t going to fix itself.

Fortunately I know a podiatrist, and they offered to help me out. I thought they would cut it off (I hated the thought, but looked forward to the relief) but instead they cut the nail out of the way and pushed the blob back from whence it came. It was sore again for a few days, but gradually it reattached and bedded in as my nail grew back on top of it.

Horrifically, it started to grow some nail of its own, to the point where I actually needed to cut it back a bit. I worried about what was going to happen when the two nails met, but it turned out fine. Again, the thought was worse than the reality.

My finger is now nearly back to normal. The nail is back to full size and the discoloured area beneath it is continuing to shrink. It still feels a bit ’off’, and the skin is still a bit sensitive, but it isn’t getting in my way and I can type and play guitar again without issue. Hopefully it will continue to improve with time.

---

I have taken photos of it every day since it happened, so here are some of the notable ones. There’s also a timelapse video of the healing process - I’m afraid this was kind of an afterthought so I didn’t put much effort into consistent lighting or positioning, but I think it’s interesting nonetheless.

Final warning

Please avoid the timelapse video if repetitive scene changes trigger any kind of seizure in you. Avoid everything if you have an aversion to gross biology stuff.