A New Project

Once again, I'm quite short on topics.

I've even gone so far as to Google search "Topics to Blog About"...and I found this list.

I fully plan on writing about each one of these topics at some point over the summer. So here goes.

1. The Story of My Most Serious Injury

This is actually pretty difficult to decide on. I've had a lot of pretty bad spills in my day (which is to be expected, considering I'm pretty much the clumsiest person ever) but there are two that stick out as being the worst. So I'll write about both of them!

The first was on Memorial Day of 2004, when I was in eighth grade. My mom, brother, and I had taken a trip to the drive-in movie theater the night before to see a double feature. In the wee hours of the morning, as we were packing up to leave, I was trying to make my way out of the open hatch of the Jeep. Danny, sitting behind me, decided to kick me, and I fell headfirst out of the car. I put my arms out to catch myself, and ended up dislocating my left elbow. It didn't hurt too badly at first, but as we were making our way towards the hospital, it started to throb. We got to the hospital, woke up whatever doctor was on duty that night in the emergency room, and had him take X-rays of the injury.

It seemed to take forever, and no one seemed to hear me when I told them how much it hurt (that's my biggest problem with hospitals: everyone there is so used to hearing people say that they're in pain that they're deaf to it). Finally, the X-rays came back and showed that my elbow was dislocated (which I had told them half an hour before, and which they could have verified by looking at the fact that my forearm was above my elbow joint) and the doctor decided it was time to reset it. He asked me if I wanted the medium strength or extra strength pain medication, and since I'm a sissy, I said the extra strength. They had to give it to me through a shot in my butt (TMI, I'm sorry) and I started feeling the effects pretty quickly.

Now, for whatever reason, the doctor had decided that right after he gave me the pain meds, he would take my mom outside the room to discuss insurance or the procedure or something. All I remember is lying on the table and starting to feel really woozy. I told Danny (who was sitting next to me) that I was feeling sleepy and he started telling me that I couldn't go to sleep, that no matter what I had to stay awake (I think he confused my injury with a concussion). But finally I did get knocked all the way out, and they reset the arm (thank goodness I wasn't awake for it, because from what my mom said I probably would have thrown up).

The recovery wasn't really that bad, but it did knock me out of the rest of softball season. Oh well. I became a very knowledgeable scorekeeper.

The second injury was my senior year of high school, near the end of volleyball season. I was in practice one night, scrimmaging with the other half of the team. I went for the ball at the same time as my teammate, and I ended up flying over top of her and landing -crunch- on my left ankle. I spouted a few choice expletives, which apparently my teammates all took to mean that I was joking around (it probably didn't help that I was giggling, which is always my first response to pain). When they realized I was serious, they all came over to help me. A lot of hugging, supporting, and wheelchair riding later, I ended up at the hospital, where my mom and I spent a solid three hours waiting around for someone to look at it. It ended up that I was the victim of a very bad sprain, and that I would have to be on crutches for at least a few weeks.

Now, I hate crutches. Sure, I always liked to play with other peoples', but having them is awful. I like being able to move, and get up and down stairs, and play volleyball, especially in my senior year.

I lucked out in the end, though, because I was supposed to be sitting out for our senior game, but the forces of nature combined with my orthopedist (who I think is getting tired of seeing me, to be honest) to give me a rescheduled game and the opportunity to play! Hooray!

I don't know how interesting these stories are to anyone but me, but maybe at some point I'll write about my experiences with Vicodin from these two injuries. Those are always good for a laugh.