I Fall to Pieces

Quick story: When I was in second grade, I went to at a friend's house. He had this steep hill in his back yard. We started to walk down, but I slipped on a rock. I started to roll down the hill and didn't stop until I hit a tree. When I sat up, I noticed my pants were ripped and my leg was bleeding. I started to freak out.

My leg! My leg!

My mom came and got me and we went to the hospital. The whole time I kept screaming "My leg! My leg!"

The doctor looked me over. It seemed I had a small concussion and my left arm was broken in three places. There was nothing wrong with my leg.

Other than that I had a pretty good track record when it comes to injury. I'm very flexible. People used to call me Gumby. Those people were assholes. The point is, I bend but don't break. Or so I thought.

Thanksgiving a few years ago I was playing football in Nick's backyard. In retrospect, I had no business playing football to begin with. When I was a kid I used to strike out in tee-ball. Tee-ball! Who knew that was even possible? But it wasn't a big deal since none of us were teeming with athletic ability.

We pretty much made up our own rules. There was only five or six people on each team, and we didn't really have anything to mark downs, so every carry was all or nothing.

About an hour into the game, we did a running play, because I can't catch. The ball was snapped and I ran. I ran like hell. Faking left. Dodging right. I was unstoppable. As I drew closer to our makeshift end zone (a shrub) I could smell victory. Except it wasn't victory, it was booze, and it was coming from Nick's dad, TJ. He was on the other team, and even though I could zip by everyone else I was never able to get past him. I was supposed to be covered by this big lumberjack of a guy named Billy, but I sort of ran past him. He would have come in handy, but instead I went over TJ's shoulders and landed on my neck. I heard a loud crack noise, like when you bite into hard candy, and immediately thought I broke my glasses. But they were fine. Everyone ran over to ask if I was alright and I got up and said I was fine, I just felt a little weird. Then someone noticed my shoulder. It didn't look right. I thought maybe it just popped out and asked if someone would put it back in place. It didn't hurt, it just felt...different.

My friends took me to the emergency room. But not before calling my parents. I really didn't want my mom to know about this because just a few weeks before my health insurance was cancelled and I hadn't renewed it. She kept nagging me to get it renewed, but I figured "What could possibly happen?" So she was more pissed than concerned.

After sitting in the emergency room for a few hours, a doctor looked at me. But first I had to fill out a ton of paperwork because I had no insurance. They took x-rays, gave me a sling and said my collarbone was broken and will heal itself in about eight weeks. They didn't even do anything, but I had to pay more money than I care to mention for it. I was still able to have Thanksgiving dinner, except now my shoulder, which hadn't hurt all day because it was numb, started to hurt like crazy.

Maybe I'll play again this year. My collarbone never really healed quite right, so it sticks out a little. So I should break the other one so they look the same. I have insurance now...