Modern medicine is amazing.  Recently, I saw a woman performing a very physical and energetic dance routine, which included an unassisted backflip. What made this amazing was that the woman had an artificial leg.

But is an example of modern-day medical miracles.  Back in the old days, when I was younger (if I say “back”, then of course I was younger), I sought medical help.  I had a wart on the end of my left index finger, right at a place that put it squarely in the way of everything I did. Right on the pad of my fingertip. And of course, the left hand is the ball-tossing hand for a right-handed tennis player.  I’m certain that any double faults I may have committed in my career to that point were a direct and impossible-to-overcome result of that wart.  I hated it.  Ken Rosewall—international tennis champion whose size, build, and indeed his strokes, resembled mine—did not have a wart on the end of his ball-tossing finger. There are some conclusions that could be drawn from this. But, I’ll leave those for others to make.

After putting up with it for more years than I care to think about, I sought medical help.  A prominent doctor (who also happened to be a neighbor) listened to me complain about it, probably more than once, and said, “Come to my office and I’ll get rid of it.”

Well, you know the rest of that story.  I went post-haste.

Now, I must preface these next two paragraphs with the true statement that I have a strong stomach. This is well documented and amply proven during my wife’s first pregnancy, as she was sick and threw up during every meal.  I did not lose weight. (Of course, she didn’t either.)

I visited the doctor’s office, eager to rid myself of this handicap. He had me sit on a table, grabbed a needle, jabbed it into my index finger and proceeded to inject my digit with enough fluid that my finger became twice as big around. Next, he took an electric wood-burning instrument, and attacked the wart. This caused it to turn brown, making it even uglier than it had been.  But I was okay with that.  Whatever liquid he had pumped in, not only fattened my finger but deadened it as well.  I watched with fascination.

Next, he grabbed a pair of scissors and with no preamble, no song or dance, no signing of a release form, no reading a privacy notice, not even a request for insurance information, proceeded to cut the entire pad off my sausage finger. If you ever had someone take a pair of scissors and snip off part of your very own body, then you will understand why I almost passed out.  I turned white, my head became faint, I saw portions of my early life pass before my eyes (without even a tape recorder handy), and I almost fell off the table. The good doctor steadied me and gave me instructions on taking care of the end of my finger. I had to correct the man. I no longer had an end of my finger.  He rephrased and suggested what to do with the stump left behind. And lest I forget that staple of all literature, my stomach roiled.

But, the wart was gone.  Halleluiah!

In time, with the miracle of – not medicine – the human body, I grew a new pad. Without a wart.  Excitement.  And for the next year, it is likely that I never double-faulted again on the tennis court. (Records are sketchy on this, some perhaps burned in a mysterious fire.)

If that were the end of the story, it would never have made the New England Journal of Medicine.

A  year or so later, the wart was back. In exactly the same place. The same size. And as annoying as ever.  No, not as annoying.  Much worse.  I had tasted freedom.  I had had a smooth, wart-free finger.  To say I was unhappy to see this return is to say Paul Bunyan was big.  It doesn’t begin to tell the story. But, I was not going back and test my strong stomach again.  No snipping off the end of my finger again. I would have to live with an occasional double-fault.

The exciting conclusion, with a mysterious twist, will be coming next week.  Stay tuned.  It will be worth it.  And feel free to leave a comment on this first bit on the wart and double faults.  Thanks.