Broken Bones- Virginia Ingram
When I was in kindergarten I watched a girl in my grade fall off the monkey bars and break her arm. I was so intrigued by the incident that I soon became infatuated with broken bones. I wanted one so badly that I often dreamt about breaking my leg during my sleep. I told my parents that I wanted to break a bone so many times that it became a common dinner conversation. One afternoon, my dad brought me a removable brace for my wrist that he had bought from Walgreens. I had never been happier and I paraded all around school the next day wearing it and telling everyone different stories about what had happened. Although this fake injury fulfilled my desire for a broken bone a little, it did not quench the thirst entirely. I wanted the real deal, including the ambulance, the colorful cast, and the hospital bed. From my experiences during first through fourth grade, I realized the importance of the cliché saying “Be careful what you wish for.”
The day before I started first grade my wish came true. I was headed down to the pond on our farm for a swim with my two cousins and my friend. We decided to take a truck down to the pond because it was a far walk and we did not want to waste any time. Christopher, the only boy in the group, obviously drove because he was eight and I was six and my cousins were seven. I sat in the truck bed, leaned up against the tailgate, and my two cousins hopped in the front seat to help Christopher drive. As he threw it into gear and slammed a lead foot down on the peddle, we lurched forward with such speed that the tailgate popped open and I flew out the back. When I landed, I immediately felt a mild pain in my left elbow and a lot of pressure as if my arm were being pumped full of water. I lay on my back and after a few moments I turned to look at my arm before getting up. That is when I saw it. By it, I mean my elbow bone that protruded from my skin and stared me right in the face. The jagged edge of the clearly broken bone caught a little bit of a summer breeze, causing me to feel literal chills inside my bone. I looked at my bone and it looked back at me and then I looked up at the sky blinking a few times before I turned my head over and looked at my bone again. It wasn’t long before the pain kicked in and I could feel the jagged edges tearing more of my skin as my dad raced me to the hospital. After surgery, I was gifted my very first cast; a hot pink, giant boulder on my arm that weighed me down and caused me to miss the first three weeks of first grade. I no longer appreciated having a broken bone but my wish was not finished with me yet.
Between first and fourth grade, I broke fourteen bones. It wasn’t unusual for me to get one cast off and then another one put on a different part of my body in the same doctor’s appointment. I was cursed, it seemed, and it left me immobile and angry. I broke my wrists five times, my elbow twice, my hand twice, my collarbone twice, my tail bone twice and two of my fingers. Not to mention I got stepped on by a horse twice, gifting me with a pair of crutches, and I have had three concussions, leaving me in a neck brace each time. I knew most of the employees at the Vanderbilt Bone and Joint Clinic on a first name basis because of my regular visits. My parents even had to fill out a questionnaire to prove they were not abusing me at home because of my numerous injuries. At Vanderbilt, I was extremely fond of a particular employee, Dan Dan the Cast Man. I never knew if his real name was Dan but I just called him that because I liked to sing it as I raced down the hall to his office. Dan had put on every single one of my casts and each time I would come in he would immediately hand me the colors I could choose from for the next addition to my body.
It was a very broken time in my life, but having a cast at all times had its ups and down. I had to watch P.E. from the bleachers for four years and I never got to participate in any of the games leaving me frustrated and very bored. However, Sometimes after getting my cast off I would find a pencil that I had shoved down the inside of my arm in attempt to satisfy an itch, so Dan Dan the Cast Man and I always joked that getting my cast off was like a mini Christmas. After my broken bone curse ended, I realized a very important life lesson: Be careful what you wish for because sometimes when you don’t get what you want, it can be a good thing.