My biggest scar is on my right arm. I fell off a skateboard when I was 18. I had played volleyball with my dad, and I was leaving to go home. He still had to ref another game, so I we had driven separate cars. My skateboard was in my car, and I saw it and thought, "Hey, an empty school, the perfect place to practice."
So I started practicing. I was trying to learn to ollie, the basic jump you need to start learning tricks. You tip the front of the board up by stepping hard on the back, jump, balance your feet evenly on the board, and land squarely.
I practiced for awhile but I wasn't making much progress. Then I stepped on the board, and it started moving. The front wheels hit a tiny little rock. If I had been going faster, I would have rolled right over it. But I wasn't going fast enough, and it stopped the front wheels. I kept going. I was falling face first over the front of the board and I thought, "I should put something in front of my face." So I lifted my arm. I landed on it. I jumped up and cradled it to my chest, the pain so big, it took me a minute to start crying. I picked up the skateboard with my other arm and went to find my dad in the gym.
He was still reffing the volleyball game, but he called a time out when I came in crying, hugging my skateboard, bleeding all over my brand new Calvin Klein sweatshirt. He had a friend who was there who was an EMT take a look at it. He said it was probably broken. It might be badly sprained, but was probably broken. My dad asked me if I could wait till he finished reffing his game. I said sure, and went to try and wash the blood out of my sweatshirt in the bathroom. When I was done with this, I went to check the game. Still going on. I went to my car and got a book, went back to the bathroom and wrapped my arm in cold wet paper towels, and sat down to read.
When the game was over, my dad had one of the players and his wife help us get my car back to my house, then he took me to the emergency room. Because I was 18 I had to fill out and sign the paperwork myself. With my broken right arm. It was awhile before I was admitted. They asked me if I wanted pain meds and at first I said no. I wanted to know what was going on, what was going to happen. I had x-rays, and tests. They kept asking me if I fell on something. There was a deep hole in one part of my arm, and they wanted to know if I fell on a sharp rock or stick. I told them no, there hadn't been anything on the ground, that's why I was practicing there. The x-rays were a puzzle to them too. Apparently the bones in my arm were straight, lined up, with this space between them where they were broken. Usually when a person comes in with a broken arm, the arm is still hanging out at the angle it broke. When I sat up, and cradled my arm, I had set it.
The hole that was bleeding was were my bone had poked out of my skin, then been pulled back in when I pulled it.
After an hour and a half, I still didn't know what was going on,they weren't telling me any of this, so I asked for meds. They knocked me out. They scheduled surgery for 6am the next morning. They woke me up a 5:30 to take me to surgery and knock me out again.
I woke up in the recovery room where I asked every nurse or tech that passed me for a comb or brush. I guess I was really worried about my hair.
I was in the hospital for four days. I have a long scar on each side of my arm where they opened it to operate lengthwise and a short horizontal scar where they stitched up the puncture wound.
I have fifteen metal screws, and two long metal plates in my right arm. I can set off airport alarms, if they are turned up high enough. I always wear short sleeves if I'm traveling so I can explain the metal.
