Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Crash and Bruise

These things suck.
(image courtesy of
wikimedia commons)
Crutches are super fun to play with. You can test your balance, use then as stilts, or pretend you’re a pirate (hook hand and parrot optional).
Crutches as a necessity? Not so fun. They’re bulky, your armpits start to hurt after a while, and you never know where to stash them when you sit down.
The last time I had to use crutches was about nine years ago when I sprained my ankle jumping around giggling and spitting raspberries torturously at my roommate. I was paid out for my folly.
Thankfully, when I sprained my ankle on Thursday, I could still walk on my foot (once the excruciating pain went away, anyway). The doctor took an x-ray and determined that there was no fracturing, and I was so happy that I could have danced. You know, if I hadn’t had a sprained ankle.
I’ve never broken a bone. I am the Accidental Bruise Queen, and have had bruises in a range of colors (including yellow, green, blue, and purple, and once even all of those at the same time), but I have never any broken bones.
My brothers broke their bones all the time when they were kids. Maybe they were just more daredevil-y than me, riding down the hill at our grandparents’ house endlessly on various homemade vehicles of questionable safety, ending up in the ditch occasionally, sometimes with broken wrists or blood gushing out of a knee or two. One of my brothers did this so often that my dad nicknamed him “Crash.”
In sixth grade, one of my classmates broke his leg so badly that he was hospitalized for several months. We sent him videos of us waving at the camera and saying “get well soon!” and gathered on the stage in the gym singing and dancing to “Hey Jude” and “Feelin’ Groovy” (it happened to be during my awesome teacher’s Beatles/Simon & Garfunkel phase). We even took a field trip to the hospital to see him once.
So, as a kid, I could definitely see the advantages to having a broken bone. You got a cool cast which people could sign, your mom and other family members went out of their way (more than usual) to get you anything you might want or need, and everyone paid attention to you.
I could also see the drawbacks. Having a cast on your arm apparently itches. A lot. You can have people sign your unbroken arms or legs anytime, really. You don't have to break them to get an autograph. Having people wait on you hand and foot gets frustrating after a while, especially if you physically can’t get up and do things for yourself. And I’d rather have people pay attention to me because I’m hilarious or because they actually like me than just because I’m injured.
This thing is a work of art. Purple, blue,
green, orange, yellow... It's like having
my very own sunset to walk around on.
Having a sprained ankle might suck, but at least it’s not broken. If it were broken, it’d take more time to heal and probably hurt a heck of a lot more. This way, I can hobble down the stairs and do the laundry or put the dishes in the dishwasher without my husband fussing at me too much to go put my foot up.
And at least I don’t have to deal with the annoying crutches.

No comments:

Post a Comment