13 Injuries I’ve Sustained...or, Heather's Greatest Hits
* Sustained, because some of these were not my fault but were done too me -- and I honestly didn't borrow this from Rhonda. I almost posted this last week when she did hers!
1. I have a scar by my right eye where I fell and hit the corner of the coffee table before I was 2 yrs old – Dad’s fault.
2. Scar on right ankle where I had four stitches around age 8 – sister Heidi’s fault. We were riding down a hill in the wagon. I was steering, she was sitting behind and grabbed my arm as we neared the bottom, propelling us into the concrete base of a laundry line support pole.
3. Faint scratch lines on face from where I ran into a tree. I was little, we were playing tag in the dusk, didn’t quite avoid the tree that sprang out in front of me.
4. Right knee kissed a VERY large boulder on a beach in Norway. My host father had called me over to see something. I went running across an open space, and just as I went to spring on top of this boulder, my foot hit a depression hidden by the tall beach grass, vaulting me INTO instead of on top of the rock. Ruined one of only two pair of jeans I had with me (too expensive to replace them there), and my knee was bruised and swollen quite a while. Oh, and did I mention the steep stairs at home? I about cried when we returned home that night and I went up to get a pair of shorts to change into so I could clean my knee.
5. Left knee, a few months after the right one. My foot hit a puddle at work and I landed on the corner of a metal skid.
6. Bowling ball size bruise to the inner left thigh where I caught a line drive one summer. THIS is why I never play softball, and I knew then I shouldn’t have let me sister and friends talk me into filling in for “just one game.”
7. Left elbow. Friends and I were at a carnival and on one ride my elbow ended up outside the top of the car. As the ride started to slow, and before I even had a chance to right myself and move my arm back inside the car, one of the attendants hit the release bars as people went by – and my elbow bore the brunt of it. It was so bad I nearly dropped a full gallon of milk when I went to get it out of the fridge that night.
8. Second degree burn to the right palm. It turns out that biscuit pans right out of the oven are HOT. Who knew?
9. Bruised back, palm, butt and twisted arm. It seems one must be careful navigating stairs during winter. I found this out the hard way my freshman year in college when I slipped while going down a flight of stairs in my dorm – and ended up sliding down the entire flight on my back. I tried to stop my momentum by grabbing for the handrail, but only succeeded in twisting my wrist and elbow, and the other hand hit the landing as hard as the rest of me. Sitting through that afternoon’s lecture was torture and writing excruciating. Good thing it was winter and I could wear bulky layers because I couldn’t wear a bra for a week.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, I slipped again the very next week. Thankfully, I was near the bottom of the stairs that time and was propelled forward into the wall this time. I don’t think my poor back could have taken that.
Too add insult to injury, the next fall as my dad departed after helping me move back into the dorm, his parting comment to me was, “watch the stairs – you have an extra flight to fall this year.” Gee, thanks Dad! :-P
10. Neck. Several years ago now a friend and I were attending a show at the Kohl Center, which has arena style seating. Which means your neck is level with the knees of the people behind you. The show had just started when the chick behind us returned from concessions and tripped over her own foot – landing on my neck. One second I was watching the performers, the next I was staring at my toes. Neither she nor her husband bothered to ask if I was okay, or apologized and it’s not like she couldn’t tell she landed on someone. Thankfully she had already passed off the full tray of drinks. To this day I suffer residual effects of whiplash. Cold drafts make my neck ache, and I have to be careful in how I stretch or how much I lift. My youngest niece is already too heavy for me to pick up. I also get migraines once or twice a month now.
11. Right knee…again. Okay, so my knees have sustained a number of bumps and bruises since that summer in Norway, some worse than others. When I was the first to arrive at work, it was habit to turn everything on. I switched on my computer, switched on the blister machine for coworkers (used to package goods), then went next door to switch on the air compressor for them. I should have stopped at the threshold and called the guys who had worked late the night before and bitched them out. Instead, I surveyed the mess they’d left and proceeded to navigate my way through the obstacle course. I breathed a heavy sigh when I safely reached the machine and turned it on.
I turned around and started back across the way – when my shoe lace caught on something. I flew forward and crashed down on the edge of a drawer left open to an old heavy metal tool chest. I didn’t ruin my pant, but the knee was bruised and so sore it was all I could do to make it back to the office. And of course we had NO ice in the freezer or snow outside that I could use to bring down the swelling. This was during my dad’s first bought with cancer and around the time my mom was ill (we didn’t know at the time, but she was going into renal failure), so instead of being able to prop my knee up when I got home at night after work that week I instead was running all over hell, which meant doing exacerbating the injury. Slipping on black ice at a strip mall a week or so later sis not help. I kept myself from landing on the knee, but that fall certainly didn’t help. That was the end of wearing jeans, since no matter how loose the fit the material pulled against the knee and made it ache fiercely.
12. Cracked the top of my left foot. It was Memorial Day, and I was at a friend’s cookout. At the end of the day I went to bring in her flag. There’s a step up from the porch as you enter her front door. As I turned to go back inside, the screen door caught the back of my right canvas slip-on and the top of my left foot slammed into the side of the house. Luckily I did not break it, but the top was severely bruised and sustained a hairline fracture. This meant I could only wear one style of shoes (the same canvas slip-ons) for the next few weeks. No sandals, no walking shoes…only the shoes I’d been wearing at the time. Good thing I’m not as vain or fashion conscious as some people I know, and do not have to wear dress shoes to work…
13. This last is the most recent one, and I’m sure you’re going to love it. It’s one of those things only I could do. I was packing up a small shipment to send out at work and as I reached for the tape gun, my right pinky grazed the sharp metal teeth that cut the tape, resulting in two long, parallel cuts along the outside of my little finger. Thankfully they weren't deep, but did they ever hurt!
* Sustained, because some of these were not my fault but were done too me -- and I honestly didn't borrow this from Rhonda. I almost posted this last week when she did hers!
1. I have a scar by my right eye where I fell and hit the corner of the coffee table before I was 2 yrs old – Dad’s fault.
2. Scar on right ankle where I had four stitches around age 8 – sister Heidi’s fault. We were riding down a hill in the wagon. I was steering, she was sitting behind and grabbed my arm as we neared the bottom, propelling us into the concrete base of a laundry line support pole.
3. Faint scratch lines on face from where I ran into a tree. I was little, we were playing tag in the dusk, didn’t quite avoid the tree that sprang out in front of me.
4. Right knee kissed a VERY large boulder on a beach in Norway. My host father had called me over to see something. I went running across an open space, and just as I went to spring on top of this boulder, my foot hit a depression hidden by the tall beach grass, vaulting me INTO instead of on top of the rock. Ruined one of only two pair of jeans I had with me (too expensive to replace them there), and my knee was bruised and swollen quite a while. Oh, and did I mention the steep stairs at home? I about cried when we returned home that night and I went up to get a pair of shorts to change into so I could clean my knee.
5. Left knee, a few months after the right one. My foot hit a puddle at work and I landed on the corner of a metal skid.
6. Bowling ball size bruise to the inner left thigh where I caught a line drive one summer. THIS is why I never play softball, and I knew then I shouldn’t have let me sister and friends talk me into filling in for “just one game.”
7. Left elbow. Friends and I were at a carnival and on one ride my elbow ended up outside the top of the car. As the ride started to slow, and before I even had a chance to right myself and move my arm back inside the car, one of the attendants hit the release bars as people went by – and my elbow bore the brunt of it. It was so bad I nearly dropped a full gallon of milk when I went to get it out of the fridge that night.
8. Second degree burn to the right palm. It turns out that biscuit pans right out of the oven are HOT. Who knew?
9. Bruised back, palm, butt and twisted arm. It seems one must be careful navigating stairs during winter. I found this out the hard way my freshman year in college when I slipped while going down a flight of stairs in my dorm – and ended up sliding down the entire flight on my back. I tried to stop my momentum by grabbing for the handrail, but only succeeded in twisting my wrist and elbow, and the other hand hit the landing as hard as the rest of me. Sitting through that afternoon’s lecture was torture and writing excruciating. Good thing it was winter and I could wear bulky layers because I couldn’t wear a bra for a week.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, I slipped again the very next week. Thankfully, I was near the bottom of the stairs that time and was propelled forward into the wall this time. I don’t think my poor back could have taken that.
Too add insult to injury, the next fall as my dad departed after helping me move back into the dorm, his parting comment to me was, “watch the stairs – you have an extra flight to fall this year.” Gee, thanks Dad! :-P
10. Neck. Several years ago now a friend and I were attending a show at the Kohl Center, which has arena style seating. Which means your neck is level with the knees of the people behind you. The show had just started when the chick behind us returned from concessions and tripped over her own foot – landing on my neck. One second I was watching the performers, the next I was staring at my toes. Neither she nor her husband bothered to ask if I was okay, or apologized and it’s not like she couldn’t tell she landed on someone. Thankfully she had already passed off the full tray of drinks. To this day I suffer residual effects of whiplash. Cold drafts make my neck ache, and I have to be careful in how I stretch or how much I lift. My youngest niece is already too heavy for me to pick up. I also get migraines once or twice a month now.
11. Right knee…again. Okay, so my knees have sustained a number of bumps and bruises since that summer in Norway, some worse than others. When I was the first to arrive at work, it was habit to turn everything on. I switched on my computer, switched on the blister machine for coworkers (used to package goods), then went next door to switch on the air compressor for them. I should have stopped at the threshold and called the guys who had worked late the night before and bitched them out. Instead, I surveyed the mess they’d left and proceeded to navigate my way through the obstacle course. I breathed a heavy sigh when I safely reached the machine and turned it on.
I turned around and started back across the way – when my shoe lace caught on something. I flew forward and crashed down on the edge of a drawer left open to an old heavy metal tool chest. I didn’t ruin my pant, but the knee was bruised and so sore it was all I could do to make it back to the office. And of course we had NO ice in the freezer or snow outside that I could use to bring down the swelling. This was during my dad’s first bought with cancer and around the time my mom was ill (we didn’t know at the time, but she was going into renal failure), so instead of being able to prop my knee up when I got home at night after work that week I instead was running all over hell, which meant doing exacerbating the injury. Slipping on black ice at a strip mall a week or so later sis not help. I kept myself from landing on the knee, but that fall certainly didn’t help. That was the end of wearing jeans, since no matter how loose the fit the material pulled against the knee and made it ache fiercely.
12. Cracked the top of my left foot. It was Memorial Day, and I was at a friend’s cookout. At the end of the day I went to bring in her flag. There’s a step up from the porch as you enter her front door. As I turned to go back inside, the screen door caught the back of my right canvas slip-on and the top of my left foot slammed into the side of the house. Luckily I did not break it, but the top was severely bruised and sustained a hairline fracture. This meant I could only wear one style of shoes (the same canvas slip-ons) for the next few weeks. No sandals, no walking shoes…only the shoes I’d been wearing at the time. Good thing I’m not as vain or fashion conscious as some people I know, and do not have to wear dress shoes to work…
13. This last is the most recent one, and I’m sure you’re going to love it. It’s one of those things only I could do. I was packing up a small shipment to send out at work and as I reached for the tape gun, my right pinky grazed the sharp metal teeth that cut the tape, resulting in two long, parallel cuts along the outside of my little finger. Thankfully they weren't deep, but did they ever hurt!
Links to other Thursday Thirteens!
Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!
The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!
25 comments:
LOL! Shoe laces will KEEL you, mang!
I laughed over the hot muffin pan... muhahahaha, errr *cough* guess I shouldn't laugh, eh?
Thanks for sharing the list.
Um, all I have to say to that is ... Owwwwwwwwwww!!
Http://www.dianasmeetingplace.blogspot.com
Rashenbo~ Yeah, I can laugh about it now--especially as it wasn't a third degree burn!
Diana~ That's pretty much what I say at least once a day. Clutz? Me? Not possible...
You need bubble wrap. Seriously.
You and Rhonda make me feel so much better about my clutzy self. Now I KNOW I'm not the only one.
I once counted the scars on my hands and stopped when I reached 100 - and I'm the only one I know who's broken her foot (well, shattered if the x-ray was to be believed) by getting off of a couch.
Perhaps we should start a club ;)
Hmm, speaking of bubble wrap, the hubby keeps threatening to put me in a giant hamster ball (a la boy in the bubble) so I can't hurt myself. Wonder if there's a market for that sort of thing?
I read number four and (this was before my morning coffee, mind you) thought it said you injured yourself on the beach at NORMANDY!
Ah, well. Klutzes Unite! :-)
Ouch!!
Someone landing on your neck had my mouth opening. Eeww.
You poor thing. I think I stubbed my toe--once. (Kidding)
PS.
LOVED the title. "Heather's Greatest Hits"
LOL!!
Great title! Now my knees hurt. I'm going to take some Motrin in your honor.
Talk about being an accident waiting to happen! Keep this up and someone will be saying "gentleman, we can rebuild her. We have the technology." :o)
Hot dang, Heather! LOL And I thought I was bad!
You and I should seriously start a support group for people with a propensity for abusing their poor knees. hehehehehe
ROFL--wow, what a list...you make mine look wimpy!!!!
(ps - I didn't think you were a copycat...everyone is going to have different stories with injuries!!) :D
Ouch!
Oh, you poor girl! Maybe I should send you a hunky male nurse to take care of you. *wg*
YIKES!
God, it's a miracle you're still alive and in working order!
Hey, I hear you on the line drive. In college, I caught one on my left deltoid (yes, I was trying to use the glove) and it was ugly -- a big, burly guy was batting and that ball was traveling so fast, it might have circled the earth if my shoulder hadn't stopped it. I never played softball again.
Ouch!!
I'm knocking on wood that I'll never be able to do a TT like this one!
This was such an appropriate post for me to see today...as I sit on the couch with my foot and ankel propped up...I got me a nice pair of crutches last night!!!! I fell down our stairs...Just call me GRACE!
Neat blog!
Number 10: That just SUCKS! How rude.
my hubby has the same scar as #1, only he blames his brother. I'm quite certain he's the only person I know who was in a cast before his second bday!
Man, I took a softball in the ear once. Hurt like a b*tch. Quit softball shortly after. You've been hurt a lot!
You'd better start wearing pads- knee pads, shoulder pads, elbow pads, maxi pads- anything that can protect your body from you! Good list I liked it.
Those aren't scars, they're badges of achievement. No matter how hard life's knockin' on you, you're still going!
I have been limping around for the last few months thanks to old knee injuries haunting me. It's getting old, so I got to thinking about the old injuries that caused it. I so wish I'd never gone skiing that day when I was 18. I think it really comes back to haunt us years later. Sad.
Post a Comment