My *Most* Serious Injury
I have a problem.
I want to contribute to this site, but I never know what to write. I am not the most creative out of the bunch, nor the best well spoken, nor the smartest. I am just me and sometimes *I* think that is a little boring. I read my fellow contributor’s posts and am in awe. I wonder, “How did they think of that?” or “What a great idea!” I guess you could say this was a sign of a low self-esteem. But who doesn’t have that? I just want to be interesting, so I thought I would try this out for awhile.
I googled “writer’s block” and after a few tweeking moments, I came across this site. I read down some of his list, and thought that this would be a good place to start. In the end, you can’t get better at writing without writing, so as long as I am writing, I should get better at it? Ha. I’ll let you be the judge of that one.
The Story of My Most Serious Injury:
Well, since this has to be injury, I will save “My Most Serious Syndrome” story for another time. My most serious injury happened when I was eight years old, at gymnastics. I was a tiny thing, and one who loved to fly through the air, jump as high as I could, etc. I don’t know how long I was involved in gymnastics before this tragic event, but I will guesstimate nine months? I was really good (don’t want to toot my own horn or anything, but this is is before I developed the self-esteem issue I guess?), and the owner of the gym wanted me to join the competitive traveling team. My parents went back and forth.
“Should we get our kid involved in competitive sports at such a young age?”
“How much will this cost?”
“Does she really like? If so, how long will she? Kids these days..”
“But she looks so happy when she is out there on the floor..”
Being the huge believer in faith that she is, my mother decided to wait for a sign as to what her decision would be. And her sign, it did come. One night, at my normal practice, I was working on the uneven bars. There were a lot of other kids on that event, so I took it upon myself (or nobody was paying attention to me, who knows) and I fell between the two bars, smack on the floor. (Maybe *this* is the moment when my self-esteem plummeted). My coach came rushing over to me, and as I looked at my right arm, it was incredibly, undeniably, broken. The best way I could describe it would be…my bone was straight…and then it took such a deep dip, and then went straight again. I remember imagining filling up the dip with water, thats how awful it looked.
The paramedics came, they tried to restrain my mother from leaving the balcony, and I was rushed to the hospital. I learn later that for the first couple of hours, they were unsure of whether I had broken my neck. I was placed in a full arm cast for nine months! That is like eternity in 3rd grader terms *AND* I could not go trick or treating that year because I was too sick. I think we went out to Bennigans instead? (Lovely).
The coaches would come and visit me at home, sign my cast, and I loved it. But, yes you guessed it, I never set foot again in that gym, and my gymnastics life as I knew it was over.
But…I still live vicariously through Shawn Johnson. You may be able to break my bones (but they do heal) but you will never be able to break my gymnastics spirit. But, maybe it was for the best. I would not want to have my growth stunted or hide my true age (a la the lovely Chinese team).
The jury is still out on what kind of competitive sports I will let/encourage my children to participate in.
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Ouch. That must have hurt like hell.
I think ballet is a good sport for boys or girls. Teaches coordination, hard work, attention to detail, and it’s artistic in a way that few sports are (american football anybody?).
Gymnastics is a great sport, except for the effect it can have on a girl’s development, which is almost scary. It doesn’t seem it affects boys’ development the same way.
My parents wouldn’t let me play (american) football. Thank god. A good decision. Not a gentleman’s sport. A brutish game, if you ask me.
Soccer is a great sport. But there are a rather astounding number of injuries in girls soccer — mainly torn A.C.L.s.
Polo. Good sport. How very high brow and British a sport it is. But also too many injuries.
Swimming? Maybe the best sport. For some reason, I’ve always thought that female swimmers are really hot because they have such muscular upper bodies. Don’t ask me why. But a very healthy sport, swimming is.
I’m a little jealous that you’re sport-wrecking injury involves you having talent/taking fate into your own hands.
I was 3 and a half years old when I went to the driving range with my ten year old sister. When hitting her long ball, she swung a driver straight into my left eye and left me with my half my vision for a month! I still am afraid of golfing.
And this is my second earliest memory (my first was meeting a bumble bee mascot)– life has been a downward spiral of trauma, pain, and golf fear ever since.
The most serious injury I ever had was probably a couple years ago when I had surgery to donate bone marrow and had a complication. It was one of those 1 in 1,000 risks happen to me for which they make you sign the informed consent form. I won’t get into the details, though. Suffice it to say that I had the most painful 24 hours of my life. I’ll also add that I lost the ability to pee on my own (before they put a foley in). It sucked.
My favorite sport to participate in is downhill, snow skiing. I’ve been skiing since I was 6 years old, and am now quite good. In fact, I was a ski bum out in Breckenridge, Colorado for 1.5 years. My most serious injuries, all three of them, occurred while skiing. In 1996, I broke my wrist. In 1997, I broke my collar bone. In 1998, I dislocated my thumb.
My mother never flinched when it came to my skiing injuries. She never questioned whether it was too dangerous a sport, and she never seemed too sympathetic when I did get injured (i.e. she and my brother would just leave me in the hotel room while they finished skiing for the day or weekend). But then I asked her if I could try out for the football (American) team. She flipped. She asked me why I wanted to deliberately injure or kill myself. And then said something to the effect, “No son of mine is going set himself up for horrific injuries for no good reason.” She then asked where we wanted to go skiing over winter break.