Broken Bones and Stitches

Age: 5
Date: Summer
Place: Good ol' Spanish Fork

The weather was warm, but it was also wet and rainy. That means it was near or during monsoon season. School hadn't started yet, so my guess is this all occurred in August of 1982. It should be more fresh considering what happened. 

Shauna and I (and another friend, whose name I think was Trina, but don't quote me on that) went over to Bishop Lamb's house (next door neighbor to Shauna). The Lamb's had a cool backyard where their garden thrived and they had several apple trees. It was in one of these apple trees that we decided to swing after a rain storm. 

Yeah, geniuses. I know. 

I think everyone else went first and had a turn. It came to me, so I got the "peer pressure" from others to just do it. I wiggled my way out on the limb; it was a sturdy limb, but fairly high off the ground and on a hill. I was facing east with the hill falling to the west and began to swing. It took a few tries, but I finally started to get going. 

That's when my hands became a bit too wet, and as I swung back my fingers couldn't hang on. My grasp quickly loosened and dropped me to the moist grass under the tree. As I hit the ground, my right arm slammed into the grass, followed quickly by my left arm and then my head meeting with both wrists as they crashed into each other a second time. 

The pain! It was searing and hot. Tears immediately came to my eyes, but the fall had knocked the wind out of me, so my open mouth was silent. The girls in the tree said, "Whoa! No way! Holy cow!" And then Shauna said, "Katie? Katie! Are you okay?" Next thing I knew, she was out of the tree helping me off the ground, and we walked around the corner to my house with me crying the entire way and screaming if anyone tried to touch me. 

When we got to my house, Shauna took me inside. My sister, Lisa, was the only one home at the time. She was supposed to be watching me, I think. In her usual fashion, she was talking on the phone as we came in the house and basically told me to shut up so she could hear her phone conversation. Shauna and I went into the family, where we sat for nearly an hour as I sporadically cried and moaned. After nearly an hour, Mom came home to me still sobbing and Lisa still on the phone. Mom chewed Lisa out for talking on the phone, demanded she hang up NOW, and checked in on me. I screamed bloody murder when Mom tried to touch my arms to see what was wrong. 

The next thing I remember, we were at Dr. Judd's office and I was having my right arm put in a cast up past my elbow. I'd had x-rays which showed a break in the wrist and was told I'd be in that cast for 6-8 weeks. The left arm seemed to be okay for the moment. I don't remember much after that when we got home, but I'm pretty sure Lisa got in serious trouble, and I crashed on Mom and Dad's water bed. 

A week later, I was still in pain and complaining to Mom. Out of exhaustion (I'm sure) she took me back to Dr. Judd's office. More x-rays indicated there was also a break in my left wrist. Another cast was put on my left arm up to my elbow, and we were sent on our way. I'm sure I was a sight to see. 

But that's not the end of the story. 

Oh, no. We don't do things the easy way around our house. 

About a week or so after the second cast was put on, Shauna wanted to ride bikes. Dr. Judd told Mom there was to be absolutely no bike riding, skateboarding, or other "dangerous" activities while I had the casts on. We were wrapping them in old sandwich bags during bath time and being extremely cautious about keeping them clean. But what's a five-year-old to do? I mean, it's summer, for Pete's sake! Who wants to keep their kid cooped up during that time when they can be outside playing and out of their parent's hair? 

So we got on the bikes. We started at the top of the block near my house where a hill started that was both big enough and small enough for a five-year-old. And then we began to race. I made it swiftly past our neighbor's house, past my house, and almost past the other neighbor's house when a van  began pulling in the parking lot of the church on the opposite corner of the block at the end of the hill. Suddenly, I seemed to forget how to use the bike breaks, and I plowed into the neighbor's fence that separated their home from the church parking lot. 

With the front wheel of my bike stuck in the fence and a cast on each arm, I had nowhere to go but down and no way to protect myself in the fall. Thankfully, I leaned to the left and landed face-first in the neighbor's grass. Phew! Right? 

No. As I said, we don't do things the easy way. 

I was stuck. And by I, I mean my bottom teeth. My teeth were stuck in the grass and there was no way for me to get out on my own. As much as I could, I tried to scream. It was a muffled sound. Who knew grass was such a good sound barrier? Anyway, Shauna had run to the neighbor's door and asked for help. Next thing I know, the pony tail in the center of my head has become the gripping device used to yank my face from the grass. 

Somebody walked my bike home, bent wheel and all, and I was walked home to Mom where she took one look at my teeth and put me in the car to go to the dentist. After everything I'd been through, you'd think the dentist would have been more sympathetic. Is that even in their job description? 

My bottom two front teeth were yanked, and the grass was dug out of the other two teeth next to those. My mouth was a bloody, painful mess - the perfect match to my still-painful and swollen arms. What a sight! 

To make matters worse, Kindergarten started only a couple of weeks after that. You should have seen me trying to learn how to write with dysfunctional fingers, how to say the Pledge of Allegiance by using my somewhat mobile left arm to raise my completely inept right arm up to my heart, and how to "play" with the others kids when every time I turned around I practically took one of them out with one of my heavy casts. Plus, you know, my smile was already missing two teeth when most of the other kids hadn't even lost one. 

That's a killer look for a five-year-old. It definitely added to self-esteem and increased capacity to make friends at school. 

Yeesh. 

It's a miracle I'm any kind of normal.

You're welcome.