Breaking Bones

In a comment here, my brother claimed that I [was apparently so safe and boring that I] had never broken a bone. Well, I’ve broken a foot and damn near broken a couple of ribs.

I broke my left foot casually walking down the stairs at Cowgrit’s mother’s old house. (This was about 12 years ago.) I was trying to read an encyclopedia while walking down, and near the bottom I misstepped and fell. It hurt really bad at the moment of the fall, but I just didn’t consider that I might actually have broken a bone.

I walked on that painful foot for two days before making an appointment with a doctor. When the doctor looked at the x-ray, the break was obvious. I got a very uncool space boot to wear for a few weeks, and after that it was all better.

I “broke” a couple of ribs while snowboarding in Snowshoe, West Virginia. (This was about 6 years ago.) It was my first weekend on a snowboard, and I fell many times. I can say, falling on a snowboard is much worse than falling on snow skis — falling forward on a board is like being punched by the Earth.

This particular time I fell forward, I fell on my arm. I was surprised that I didn’t break my arm, but I definitely did hurt my ribs. I continued boarding for the rest of that day, but my chest hurt with every breath. It wasn’t an overbearing pain, but it was enough that after a few hours, I decided to go to the medical building. I just knew I had at least cracked a rib or two.

The medics checked me for a punctured lung (negative) and poked and prodded me to determine if I was in immediate danger (I wasn’t). They warned me not to board anymore until I could have an x-ray taken at a hospital when I got back home. They said even if I did have a broken rib or two, there was nothing they could do about it. Can’t really put a cast on my chest.

Fortunately we were leaving the next morning anyway, so I didn’t really miss out on much more snow sports. The day after we got back home, I went to the hospital for x-rays. The doctor examined my chest and my x-rays and said the two ribs that hurt were probably only sprained. But, he said, sprained ribs feel the same as broken ribs to the patient, and the treatment is the same: he gave me a sling for my arm.

The sling was really just to keep me from using that side of my chest for a few weeks so the injury could heal. I didn’t have to wear it all the time, but I should wear it as often as I could as a physical reminder to keep that side immobile as much as possible.

Technically, no rib was broken, but when people asked about my sling, I said I had “two busted ribs.” People think “broken” when they hear “busted,” and they can naturally understand that more than what “sprained” actually means. (A truly sprained limb should be immobilized for a while to heal.)

And note: Putting your arm in a sling doesn’t really make injured ribs feel better when just breathing naturally feels like someone is twisting a knife in your side. It’s really hard to not breath for three weeks.

Bullgrit