It's been about a year since I broke my wrist/arm/hand longboarding in the canyon last summer. The whole thing was such an intense experience, and I really am grateful for it. Although it SUCKED at the time! I've always wondered how much pain I could handle... And true, that's probably not the most painful thing I'll ever experience, but it's nice to know I can make it through something like that.

Well, I thought I'd post pictures of broken arm #1, when I was 6, and broken arm #2, last year when I was 19. Same arm and everything, but much different breaks. However, both were due to my stupidity.

Story #1: I was playing with a newly purchased garage sale scarf tied between the two posts of Missy's and my bed. I was laying in it like a hammock, and soon got bored. I brilliantly decided to jump over it. One, two, three, JUMP! My foot got caught halfway through the jump and my top half kept going in an arc until BAM! My right elbow took the full force of the fall and I knew it was broken... At the pediatrician's office, I sat calmly and watched The Little Mermaid - my favorite movie. My mom grew a little suspicious and asked me if I was sure I broke my arm because I was acting "shockingly cavalier" [not her exact words, but... name that movie!] about the situation. I was a little nervous because I knew that getting an x-ray meant paying for an x-ray and I didn't want my parents to waste any money, but I said I was sure. Well.. the results came back and I did indeed have a hairline fracture right near the joint of my elbow. Most of my cast-wearing sentence was carried out during the summer between kindergarten and first grade, but then the first day of school came around and my handwriting was awful. This was a serious blow to my 6-year-old perfectionist self. I think that's the only time I was made fun of to my face in all my grade school days, and I hated that cast. But, I got really good at doing things with my left hand. Except for writing. Oy. Little did I know that that was the practice run for the big show 13 years down the road...

Story #2: I was crusin down Provo canyon on a borrowed longboard, and feeling both proud of myself for doing something fun and exciting, and extremely nervous because I was not at all good at it. After a while of the more seasoned longboarders literally holding my hand through the experience, I found myself speeding toward a turn in the trail. "Just go for it," I thought to myself, "Last time you made it! Then again you weren't going so fast!" I made a split-second decision to drop my foot off the board onto the pavement in hopes of running down the hill and grabbing my longboard and avoiding the turn. My footing was totally messed up and I really was going faster than I'd ever gone before. Needless to say, I tangled my feet up and flew into the air like superman. (At least, that's how Elena described it) POW! I landed on my right wrist, and knew it snapped. I skidded on my front for a few feet. When I stood up, I felt the raw skin more than anything else and was disgusted - feeling like I'd just gone through a cheese grater. Then, I remembered my wrist snapping and was afraid to look at it because I knew it was going to be gruesome. Sure enough. It was all squiggly and jutted my hand out at a weird angle, and I knew it was going to start hurting real bad, real soon.

With my friends and sister there to help me, all I was really afraid of was how bad I had actually broken it. I didn't dare move it for fear of worsening the damage and increasing the already nauseating pain. Anyway, I wished and wished it was all a dream, and that I would wake up soon, but I never did. After much help from those around me, I was off to the hospital where I got an x-ray and the news that I was broken in 5 places: radius and ulna, a couple in the wrist joint, and my "pinkie metacarpal". There was a lot of pain and work and patience involved in my recovery, but despite all that, there are so many things I'm thankful for. First of all, I'm so glad that I broke my arm and not my head or neck! And of course, I am so ridiculously thankful for the people who were with me at the time. Andrew for zooming off to try and get me some help. Elena for quite literally giving me the shirt off her back to use as a cold wrap. Missy for offering a prayer. And Betty for comforting me the entire time. And I'm glad I had the experience so I could help Teri a little through her own broken wrist recovery.

Now I have a bionic wrist, as I like to call it. I wonder what is going to happen next time I fly, and my metal plate sets of the security alarm...