My Story

This is a condensed short story that I wrote about three of my breaks. If I wrote about all of the bones that I have broken it would be a book. Perhaps one day I shall write a book, but for now, I give you my short story.


Chapter 1
I was around the age of twelve, it was Halloween afternoon just after school let out. I was playing base tag with my two best friends: Stephanie and her brother Justin. We were just outside my house when my mom came out and told us to come inside. I asked her if we could play for just a bit longer, she agreed and went back inside. My friends and I resumed our game and continued running from base to base. I remember running to a huge rock that we had proclaimed to be a base when all of a sudden the world felt like it had flipped upside down, but it was not the world it was me. I had tripped. It all felt like it was happening in slow motion. In the mist of what was happening I was predetermining in my mind the scenario that would take place soon after it was over: I would have little pebbles stuck in my hands, maybe a few scratches on my body, and after picking myself up off the ground I would attempt to brush off the embarrassment that I had collected from falling in front of my friends.

However, things seem to never happen the way one might think. In reality I could not stand up. There was something wrong with my left leg. It felt like a hollow log with a broken stick rattling around on the inside when ever I attempted to move it. The pain was so excruciating and unfamiliar, unlike anything I had ever felt before. All of these sensations sent an uncomfortable hot and cold shiver of fear down my entire body that flowed from my head down to my feet. The only thing I remember thinking in that moment was that my leg was going to have to be amputated, and the only thing I could voice was a cry of unquestionable fear and pain. My mom ran out from inside the house towards my scream. At a moment’s glance she saw the seriousness of my condition and the fear that filled my eyes. She yelled for someone to call 911. At the hospital I learned that I had broken my femur, the biggest bone in the body and the most dangerous one to break.

Months had passed and time was lost as I spent nearly half a year in a partial body cast completely bed stricken. Time spent lying flat on my back became unbearable. I was missing school and my friends. Teachers sent homework to my house, but assignments were difficult for me to complete. The medication I was taking for my pain had inhibited my ability to focus. Once I was finally liberated from the cast I spent most of my time with a physical therapist. She worked with me to get my mobility back and taught me how to use crutches. I spent several painful months with my physical therapist manipulating and stretching my leg to get its’ mobility back. Trying to bend my knee was like someone trying to knock down an oak tree by merely blowing on it; it would not bend. My leg had been in one position for so long that trying to stretch it almost hurt worse than breaking the leg itself. I hated how much time I had lost: time from school, time from friends, and time from regular day activities. I had missed so much school that I ended up having to repeat another year. What would I be doing now if I had not lost that year of school? Spending time helplessly in bed for half a year and losing a year of school, I felt like I had lost part of my life that I could never get back.


Chapter 2
I had plans to work on a math project with my two friends from school: Ashley and Jamie. Ashley and I met at Jamie’s house and decide we would tackle the task there. However, the three of us were pre-teens in middle school and had low abilities to concentrate. We decided instead that it would be a much better idea to play on Jamie’s big trampoline that was outside in her back yard. The bad idea was all three of us jumping on it at the same time. Let it be known that when more than one person jumps on a trampoline at once, trampolines tend to throw the lightest individual much higher in the air than the rest. Considering that I was the shortest of the two and weighed less than a hundred pounds that person was me. Ashley and Jamie had jumped in such perfect synchronization that I was suspended high in the air, like the splash of water when a rock is thrown into the pond. The irony here, is that when I came down I was fine. But it was enough to remind me that my Dr told me to never go on trampolines because of my fragile bones, but I was 12, meaning I stayed on. Thinking it would be safer, I decided to sit on it with my legs straight out, while the other two bounced me. But then with one gentle bounce, I had slightly rolled over on my left side, which would not even faze another person. But Suddenly, I could not move my left arm. It felt like it would rip apart from my body if I did. This is where the irony sets in. The pain was horrific. I had an incline of what had happened and knew that it was most likely broken. Jamie’s mother came running from the house to see what had happened. When I told her to called 911 she seemed to have questioned my ability to discern whether or not that was the right thing to do, it was, and I knew it.

The paramedics came and drugged me with laughing gas. They needed to lift me onto a stretcher because the break was high up on my arm, near my shoulder, and extremely painful. The bone inside my arm had been broken into two separate pieces. After being x-rayed the doctor at the hospital pronounced it a clean break and told a male nurse to cast my arm. I deemed the nurse chosen for the task an idiot merely disguised as a male nurse. He forgot to drug me before moving and wrapping my arm. I could tell that he seemed to hate his job according to the manner in which he handled my broken arm. He was not cautious at all and could care less that he was hurting me. Tears streamed down my face as pain pulsed through my body. My arm took a lot longer to heal than most. I spent an entire summer with the hot and sweaty cast wrapped around my arm, comparable to that of a heating blanket. Showers were impossible because of the cast and I had to take baths. I also, lost a summer of fun and play because I had to moderate my activities even after the two half’s of my bone began to stick together.

Chapter 3
I was lying on the ground, not really understanding what had just taken place. Did I really just break my same leg again for the 3rd time? Familiar and torturous pains coursed through my entire body, especially my leg. I knew it all too well. The same hollow feeling with that darn stick rattling on the inside. Lying helplessly on the ground with all my friends gathered around me --all with scared and concerned looks on their faces-- it took nearly fifteen minuets before I shed one single tear this time. Inside I was numb and angry. I did not feel sadness nor pity upon myself. I was angry and frustrated. Lying on the ground and waiting for the ambulance I quarreled with God. I hated him for putting me through such torture. Why me? My childhood was slipping through my fingers with nothing to show for it. I knew what was expected: A huge cast from my torso all the way down my legs with a bar connecting one leg to the other to keep my body stable, several long months of immobility and starring at the ceiling, and more physical therapy. When the ambulance arrived I asked for laughing gas almost immediately. They could not give it to me; I had moved to California and they did not allow paramedics to give anyone laughing gas. Now more than ever I wanted laughing gas. I wanted to be sheltered from the real world at that moment. The world that can give so much and yet, take everything away in an instant. I felt that the freedom to be a kid, to be a teenager, and to have a life, was something only those around me could partake of. I was losing the one thing most dear and sacred to anyone, something no one can ever gain back: my childhood.

Part 2:

My Grandmother:

After I broke my leg at age 12 (the 1st time), I was healing in my own bed at home. I remember one specific morning when I woke up my grandma sat right next to my bed side and fed me an Eggo waffle with butter in every square with strawberry jelly on top, just the way I liked it. She cut up little pieces with a fork and fed me one bite at a time as l ate lying flat on my back watching a Disney movie. She asked me if I wanted another one and I did because I liked how it comforted me and made me feel warm and happy. It was a happy moment that distracted me from my body being trapped and caged in a cast that forced me to painfully lie flat on my back for 6 months. I know she's gone now.... but I wish I could tell her that I will never forget that. It is forever ingrained in my heart.

Living at Shriners Hospital:

I remember being a teenager and this time I was living at the Shriners hospital in Sacramento for months alone in another spica body cast for my 2nd time breaking my Femur. My family lived in Carmel, so I was always homesick. I had my nurses that became my friends because they always helped me with food, medicine, and coming in after I had pressed the nurses button to help me go to the bathroom in a bedpan. I remember them washing me with a basin for my hair and scrubbing me with washcloths for the parts of my body that weren't casted. They adjusted my body and my cast slowly and gently in teamwork when I was uncomfortable. And they were always so kind about it.

Vital Signs and Sleepless Nights:

They had a round the clock routine with a special nurse that had to take my vital signs constantly. They came in at what felt like always the worst moments, because sleeping was impossible for me. And the Vital signs routine didn't make it any easier. It was usually that I was in too much pain too sleep, but too early for my next dose of pain medicine, so I would watch tv. The vitals signs nurse always came in very early in the morning around 7am for vitals, and again in the afternoon, and I think at dinner, and then again around 3am in the morning, where either I had actually just fallen asleep, but they had to wake me up, or I was already still painfully awake.

The Night Nurse:

I remember one night it was around 2 o'clock in the morning and I couldn't sleep. I was in so much pain and I was also so incredibly and unbelievably homesick. I missed my home, my parents, my room, my bed. I missed home so much that I was crying, and I couldn't stop crying. I just couldn't go to sleep. So I pressed the nurses button. Then a night nurse--the sweetest night nurse that I had made friends with, came in my room and immediately saw the tears falling off my cheeks and falling into my ears (because I was lying down). She sympathetically asked me what was wrong and I couldn't hold in the tears as I told her how I was feeling. She pulled up a chair right next to my bed. And watched sleepless in Seattle with me on my hospital room tv. My tears slowed as she gave me tissues and grabbed my hand and held it...firmly, in a manner that said, you're not alone...and we watched the movie together. I will never forget that. I will never forget her. How she comforted me. If only I could find her and thank her. Not only has all that I have gone through shaped and molded me into the person that I am today, but she is one of the many reasons why I have so much empathy for people and such a huge heart towards wanting to comfort and help others. She gave me a wonderful gift that night: A priceless memory that I will forever remember, and a passion for helping others.