Coordinated Management of Meaning

Observation #2
January 26, 2015
Coordinated Management of Meaning

In January of 2014 I was taken to the emergency room of Ball Memorial Hospital on the first day of classes after a Staph infection caused my finger to double in size.  After a minor operation to remove the infection from my finger, I spent the next two days in a hand wrap and the next two months constantly changing hand bandages as my finger finally closed into the cross shaped scar that remains still today.  Over these two months, people constantly questioned the purpose of the bandages.

With every answer, I had to walk the fine line of telling people the exact story of what happened to my finger while also leaving out many of the more disturbing details of the situation.  For example, my story lived includes the fact that my finger had been causing me pain for about a week prior to the incident and I only went to the emergency room when my neighbor saw that the infection was oozing out of an opening; however, I do thoroughly enjoy over-exaggerating the oozing as more of an explosion.  Because of this, I lacked successful management of my story lived with my story told.

In addition to my use of hyperboles and exclusion of details, I am unable to explain the feelings that went through my head throughout the operation.  For example, I often tell people that it was extremely painful and that I was fairly calm throughout the process (I am not at all afraid of having a finger amputated), but I struggle to express the humor of the overall situation.  The story of lived consisted of a sassy nurse who stepped back from the operation because my blood was spurting out of my wound and a doctor who kept commenting on how excited he was to cut my finger open.