A Blast into the Past

Danielle Ryan

(4/2010) I thought that for this month's article I would share a story of an experience that I had many years ago when I was a very foolish child. This may jog some of your own memories of silly things you did when you were younger.

One memory that really stands out is the last day of school when I finished the third grade.

I remember this day very clearly. It was the day that we got out of school, my last day of third grade. When I was younger, my whole family (aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents) all got together for a picnic on the last day of school. I was very excited because this meant that I was going to hang out with my cousins.

Being the kids that we were, my cousins Alex, Chris, and I decided to go out to the backyard and play around. We went over the swing set and fooled around, pushing and shoving each other, the normal kid stuff, until we got bored of the silly little game we were playing.

Then someone (I don't remember who) had the brilliant idea to go over to the neighboring yard, which was Chris's house, and use his swing set, which just happened to have a sliding board that was obviously way more fun than the boring swings. With much exploring, we found out that sliding boards are very versatile. Not only can you slide down them, but you can also run up them and even jump off the sides.

The three of us decided that it would be a great idea to make a game out of running up the sliding board and then jumping off the side while attempting to do tricks. We planned that each time you jump off the slide you have to do one spin, then two, then three, and so on. Of course, I, being the youngest of the three, had a disadvantage in that I was not as experienced at jumping off the sliding board. In fact, I was used to sliding down them.

Each of us was able to jump and spin one time and even two times.

When it came to jumping off the slide and spinning three times, both of my older cousins were successful. I, however, was not. I successfully made it up the slide and spun two times but I clearly didn't jump high enough. This negligence resulted in not having enough time to spin three whole turns in the air.

Try as I might, I could not spin three times, but instead fell to the ground beneath me. As much as I wish I could say I landed on the ground gracefully, I didn't. Oh no. In fact, I landed in the most ungraceful way a kid could possibly land; I landed right on top of my left arm. All of my weight landed on my arm alone (you see where this is going). I heard the infamous snap, crackle, pop of my arm beneath me.

As I stood up I honestly didn't feel anything until I looked down at my poor crippled arm. What I saw in front of me made me scream bloody murder. My arm was contorted into a sort of S shape as the bones beneath my skin had broken out of place and almost did a flip flop with each other.

Obviously, I ran screaming to my mom, who, by the way, didn't even believe me when I screamed that my arm was broken. When I held out my arm she looked at me with a shocked, horrified face and immediately yelled for my aunt as she guided me to the car.

From this point of horror, I remember a very long car ride, a hysterical fear and recognition of the fact that I would have to get a shot, (in fact I got two! One was an IV), and a very long wait in the hospital.

Coming out of the anesthesia, I realized that I had made a very stupid mistake, because, remember, this was the day I had gotten out of school for the summer break. For several days afterwards, I had to stay inside with my arm iced and propped on many levels of pillows. I now knew that I had to spend an entire summer in a very hot and itchy cast and that my whole summer could be a drag.

Who would have thought that one stupid mistake would lead to an entire summer spent in a cast? To this day my family still talks about the day I broke my arm and how I yelled "I broke my arm! I broke my arm!"