Broken finger

Dear diary, somewhere around mid June (19th?) I played a game of soccer with my kids. The World cup was on so [football,soccer] fever was running high in our household. Unfortunately this cost me a broken little finger on my left hand.

It was a pretty innocent accident that caused it too. I simply dove after the ball and my finger got stuck in the grass while the rest of the hand was still moving along and snap, the damage was done. Unfortunately it was broken right on the first joint so it's been a somewhat unpleasant experience.

It's not so much the pain but the fact that I lost quite a bit of mobility despite exercises given to me by an occupational therapist. I'm back to playing again but I'm still having trouble with a number of things such as open G chords. The finger is also swollen and it may never slim down to its original proportions.

I've also been told on every occasion that I've seen the doctor that I will eventually get arthritis in that joint, possibly in 10-15 years. The first time I was told that I didn't like it of course but the doctor has to tell you these things I guess. I suppose the time frame is a complete guesstimate so I'm not really thinking about that too much.

I do mind a bit that I had to get my face rubbed into that fact on every visit though. You'd almost think that the man enjoyed telling me that I was doomed. I probably should have told him on every occasion that he would die. Probably in his seventies or eighties, nineties if he's lucky. I wonder how he would have liked me telling him that every time I saw him.

Anyhow, I've named my little finger Quasimodo because he looks a bit like a hunchback these days but I'm back to playing and I'm enjoying it again too. Les Paul still played with arthritis when he was 93 even though he mentioned in an interview he had re-learn how to play six times because of it. There is still hope for me I guess.

I'm not taking lessons at the moment, I'm trying to play a lot and make some progress on my own before I head back to the instruction and I'm having a good time doing it. Working a lot on getting my hands loose again and working a bit from the Berklee book. More or less back to the start because my reading is still very poor.

A more formal approach

I've been playing for a while now and I've learned quite a few tunes with varying levels of success but I've felt the need to learn more about playing guitar with respect to actually reading notes, understanding scales and intervals and what not.
After discussing this with my teacher he suggested that I try working with him according to the Berklee method which was created by William Leavitt. My teacher learned following that method himself and he feels it is an excellent method to really learn how to play.

I've bought the books (actually one book with all three volumes) and I've started working through them. It's going okay and my reading is improving. I find that because I'm forced to play while looking at the sheet music I improve my overall playing as well. That is a great side benefit.

I was wondering about how long it would take to go through this so I 'googled' it and found a page called Tribute to William Leavitt and I was pleasantly surprised to see that towards the end it indicated the expected time it would take a person working through the books as a part-time or full-time student.
Assuming I will go through the whole thing as prescribed there I will be three years further (40 months to be more precise). That is a long time but it's good to have some idea. I'm not going to let it rush me but it's nice to have the yardstick.