“If you can wiggle it, it isn’t broken.”
Or so I thought. I fell at the Velodrome on one of those lovely steep corners trying to get off the track too fast. The bike hit the slippy centre of the track, tipped over, and down I went. It was mostly embarassing, not painful and in a way it was sort of a relief. Everyone falls and you just feel better having done it and found out that at low speeds nothing too bad happens. I rode the rest of the session, once a very friendly volunteer annointed my scrapes, fearing that if I didn’t get back on the bike that that would be it. I got back on the horse, as they say, heart pumping from the spill, I still had a great time.
But the next day I had a doctor’s appointment for another matter entirely. Being the observant sort the 20-something doctor noticed my very swollen fingers. She asked what happened. I told her. Velodrome, speed, spill, death grip on the drops of the bars, smushed fingers on left hand. But I said with complete confidence, "I can wiggle them so they aren’t broken." I should mention at this point that the clinic in question is for university faculty members. She is used to people like me. Young Doctor asks, while smiling, "What’s your PhD in anyway?" "Philosophy," I tell her. Ahh, she sighs. "Not much medicine it that, right?" I nod. Then she stops smiling and says seriously, "Well, if you had studied medicine you’d know that It’s not true that if you can wiggle it, it’s not broken. Some things are more wiggly when broken." Ouch.
More ouch when they had to move my fingers into all sorts of weird positions for the x-ray. (As a philosopher I always cringe when they ask the pregnancy/x-ray question, you know "Is there any chance at all you’re pregnant?" Given various heavy duty serious birth control measures in place, it’s extremely unlikely. Very very unlikely. But it’s possible in that there is a teeny tiny small chance. But once again I avoid discussing standards of possibility and certainty with x-ray technicians and let them proceed. I figure they won’t want to talk philosophy and will instead send me off for an unneeded pregnancy test.) They tell me that if I hear nothing I’m fine. For days, many days, silence. I think smugly "Ha…there must be something to the wiggle test after all." But today the call. And now I believe her. Repeat after me: It’s NOT true that if you can wiggle it, it’s not broken.
