Musical Set Back

Notice that I am typing a little slower and more gingerly than usual? That's because I bought my wife a new knife for Christmas. She bakes us bread fairly often, and the old knife wasn't giving us clean slices on warm bread, even after it had rested properly, no matter how much I sharpened it. So, I got a Kai Wasabi 9" serrated. 

Not the top-of-the-line, but I have a couple other knives by Kai and they are well-made and useful.

The new one? It's really sharp. 

Anybody not-know where this is going? 

Yep. Play with knives, you get, well, you know. 

Yesterday, as I sliced a nice olive roll open, I decided it need a bit of seasoning, so I also sliced off the tip of my left middle finger.

It really is a sharp knife.

Fortunately, the amputation was only the very tip, angled slightly, didn't get into the nail bed. A nice little oval, a millimeter or two thick, mostly skin, but enough meat so it bled like a fountain.

 I put pressure on it, bandaged it up good, and that's pretty much all there is to be done. Not something that can be stitched together, and the medical term for the healing process in this case is "secondary intention." You keep it bandaged, wait for it to scab over and new tissue to grow from the edges. As long as there is no infection, this usually gives good results.

This takes a while, typically six weeks or so, and it will be tender for a time after that.

Playing the ook or guitar with a big bandage on the tip of a fretting finger is problematic. 

There are ways around this. Barre chords up the neck that need only the ring or pinkie, or open tunings (where you tune the strings to a chord and then just use barres for major chords.)

And probably once the finger scabs over, I can go to a smaller band-aid and alter the finger position a bit

I can type, albeit not as cleanly as normal. It does make me realize that somebody like a surgeon or violinist or watchmaker really needs to watch it when they chop vegetables or slice open their bagels …

Update:

Three days along:

Not so bad ...