How I Broke My Arm

Though I have already told a few people of this story, I thought, "Eh, what the heck, I'll just make I blog post so I don't have to repeat it over and over."

I remember it like a video...
It was probably when I was 3 or 4, and the memory began with me waking up in the van with my family as we were going up the driveway while having no memory of before. It was late at night, so that let me know why I had been asleep and felt tired after I woke up. When we parked, we got out of the van, I held a family member's hand as I rubbed my eye from sleepiness and as we walked to the porch stairs.

Now let's pause here for a moment while I explain something:
We have a dog. When she was a puppy, we used to let her go outside without a leash, so she would go roaming the neighborhood. Everything was perfectly fine, until the neighbors were complaining about her being on their yards and dumping. So we had to stop that and put her on a leash tied to a tree when we let her outside. But every now and then she would suddenly get that slim chance of escaping -either by running out when we opened the door, or when the leash would give way and somehow became unattached to her collar. Then one or two member's would get a car -with or without dog treats- and catch her. It always worked, so afterwards we normally punished her by giving her no treats and making her stay in her bed. But every time she escaped, she would bolt off like a bullet.
I hope you can see where this is going.
So as we were going up the porch stairs, we were in a line-ish fashion because we weren't dumb and trying to get in all at once for no reason, and I was near the caboose. The member who reached the door first opened that door, and our dog ran out. The stairway was kinda packed, but she was able to tumble through, causing me to fall over the side of the stairs. There were of course railings, I was just small enough enough to fit through.

The fall wasn't bad -about a foot or so- and my arm landed on some small stumps where there used used to be decor bushes. We kinda live on a hill, so the front pawn slopes downwards. So after the stumps, I rolled down halfway through the lawn, arms tucked close to my body, before I stopped. Thankfully I don't remember how the pain felt, but I remember my reaction meant that it was absolutely horrible.

Now think about this for a second:
I was hit on the side by my dog and my head knocked on the top of the railing when I fell through:
+3
My arm landed on some stumps:
+5
And I rolled down the lawn:
+2

Add those up, and on a scale from one to ten, one meaning not crying at all, how much should have I been screaming and crying in pain by then?
Exactly.
But I surprisingly hadn't cried out at all.
That... was until a second after I stopped rolling that I had burst out screaming.
It was about 3 seconds later 'til 75% chance my dad and 25% chance my mom who raced over to me, picked me up, ran to the car, buckled me in, then Mom and Dad quickly drove off with me.
So we drove for a while until we stopped at this place that sorta looked office-like with cubicles and stuff. It wasn't exactly like it, just more different, but whatever. So we stopped there, 75% chance my mom and 25% my dad picked me up piggy-back-ride style -me over their back as they're hunched over and holding onto me by grabbing my hands/wrists when my arms are over their shoulders- , carried me into the building, went to this computer-thing, and typed and did stuff I didn't understand. I think that was a bad idea, as I'm now thinking that style of carrying me increased the pain in my arm, but... whatever.

Now let's pause here again:
Up until the point I stopped rolling, I had been screaming bloody murder. That's right. I screamed through the whole car ride, and while my mom was on the computer. In public. I didn't care that there were workers there staring, and I don't think mom cared about it either, though I think I saw her glancing at the people around her. After the computer stuff, she quickly got us out, buckled me in, and we resumed driving. Of course, still screaming.

Now after this I don't remember... the next thing I knew was probably me being rolled through the hospital hallways on a gurney, some more I-don't-remember, then I woke up in a hospital bed and some family members at my right side. I think I was in this curtain-entrance room, and the only light in the room was from behind the curtains and maybe a TV. A member/nurse then asked me what I wanted to drink. I replied in the "poor, weak, frail, dry, and innocent puny human" voice. I think it was 75-85% from just simply suffering pain and tiredness, and the rest on purpose. I have no idea how or why I would've purposely acted like that in a situation like this, but I didn't care.

So I said "Sprite... please..." or "Can I have some Sprite please..." or something close to that. After a while/a second, a/the nurse came back with one of those teeny tiny plastic cups with Sprite in it. I drank it pretty quickly/practically inhaled it, and put the cup down/gave it back to the nurse.

And that's all I can remember. YEARS later, my parents said that they took me to Hutcheson-or-something, but it wasn't so great there. One of the nurses wouldn't give my parents the paperwork explaining how to help me with this new broken arm to take care of, so they asked another nurse why, and she replied to them in a mean way because she was dehydrated and cranky. That got them so much that they just snatched the paperwork from the other nurse, got me out, and took me to Erlanger Children's Hospital. That's where it was much better. The nurses and docs were helpful to my parents, calmed me down, and all that happy jazz~ My mom (who's an RN there now) has said that they even have some people who work there who even have a college degree in helping children with stress and anxiety in the hospital. For example: the majority of the insulating-ceiling-tile-things were painting on with drawings made by kids who went to that hospital. So when they rolled me through the hallways, I could look at the drawings. It was fun, calming, and distracting. AND when I went here another time when I got appendicitis and they had to insert a tube into my arm, a couple of nurses kept telling me to breathe deeply as I read a Where's Waldo book, and I barely felt a thing. Well, my mom says it was a Waldo book, but I don't believe her. It was this kid's book series about a detective-ish dog named Ike. I liked the book so much that they let me read another one AND gave me a free Ike plushie. I was so happy. I think I still have that toy somewhere in the house.

So that's how I broke my arm now go home you're drunk