Eventually, I'll laugh. For now, I whimper.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

So, they tell me that I’m a black belt in tae kwon do. Generally, I’m willing to believe them. After all, I’ve got the belt, embroidered with my name, and the certificate, the previous belts, etc.

But they also tell me that black belts have some traces of coordination, balance, and timing. Or, at least, they can demonstrate basic gross motor skills without causing themselves grievous body harm.

Hah, my body says. That mind may be a black belt, but I am a foolish amateur!

I was in the dojang today, during class. We were doing some basic gymnastic-ish drills; nothing I haven’t done before. Shoulder rolls, cartwheels, that sort of thing. I have never claimed to be great at these things, nor have I been great at them, but I’ve been able to get by.

Only today, my wrist decided it didn’t want to be a black belt wrist. Or something; you can never tell what those sneaky joints are thinking. No, it decided it wanted to be, perhaps, a 90-year-old wrist.

I sprained my wrist two summers ago, and I don’t think it ever fully healed properly (perhaps this is its revenge?). It clicks and cracks when I rotate it, and if I sit with it still for a while (as in typing), I then need to ‘pop’ it (just press down on the back of my hand with the other hand, wrist goes ‘pop’) before I can really use it again. But it’s never been a problem, no pain.

Hah. Did you know that knees aren’t the only joints that can spontaneously ‘give’? Wrists can, too. Even in the middle of a cartwheel.

Perhaps it was my knee’s fault. The drill was jumping over a partially-folded mat, do a cartwheel, jump again, run to the end of the line, repeat. Went fine the first time - my cartwheel was actually identifible as such. But I suppose that the second time around, I came out of the jump slightly off-balance. Cartwheel became cart-pop-OW. I became “The dazed black belt lying on the floor gasping in pain”.

So, I got to drive myself home one-handed. I’ve busted out my ‘previous experience’ wrist brace. Then I had to get a friend to go buy me ibuprofen, since I was ready to kill someone for it. He also got me chocolate chip cookies, because chocolate has endorphins, and they make pain go bye-bye.

King-size bottle of ibuprofen: $13.00
Chocolate chip cookies: $2.99
Gas money to get to free clinic tomorrow: $5.00
The look on your instructors face when he asks, “Was that your wrist?”: Priceless.
Spending forever typing a one-handed message of pain and humiliation for the Teeming Millions to share: Also priceless.

Good night, all, I’ve got a hot date with a nice, soft, mattress and pain-free sleep.

2

If it makes you feel any better, I stepped into a side-kick and had a bruised rib for three weeks.

3

:eek:

4

Ehhhh… If it still hurts, really bad, tomorrow, I’d make sure the clinic X-rays it. Just in case.

A year ago October, I tripped over a shovel at the barn and slammed face-first onto asphalt, shrieking “SHIT!” as I landed. Or actually it was my left hand that hit first, followed closely by my elbow. It hurt like a son-of-a-gun immediately, and I figured I must have wrenched it. It still hurt as I made up the horses’ grain; it sent daggers of pain shooting up my arm as I drove home (mostly one-handed); it was leaving me breathless and sick-feeling as I changed out of the stinky barn clothes and called a friend to drive me to the emergency room.

Turned out to be a simple transverse fracture of the neck of the radius – a broken elbow, in fact. Yet I was able to use my arm, hand, fingers, which is why I didn’t think at first it was broken. You might have broken something in that wrist, NinjaChick, or pulled/torn a ligament. Hopefully at the clinic tomorrow they’ll say it’s okay, and you’ll just have to lay off the cartwheels for a while.

It sure is frustrating to have to restrict your activities while you heal, though. Which is why I was back to tacking up without help and riding four days after the accident. It’s amazing what you can do with one good arm if you really want to. :slight_smile:

5

A few years ago I got bucked off and did a dive onto my wrist. It swelled up huge, and I couldn’t move my fingers, but everyone swore it was just a sprain, just a sprain.

When I finally got to the doctor, they confirmed it to be a break. Right along the growth plate to be exact, which was bad as I was stilll in elementary school.

Defintaly demand an xray. Good luck! (Now I have to be careful of cartwheels in TKD class… hmmm)

6

I also recommend an x-ray. I broke my wrist but could still kinda use my hand (with much pain)
Hope you get to feeling better (and what does the sig mean?)

7

My Freshman year of HS, I was running laps for weight training class. Since it was nearing winter, and too cold to run outside, we were running up a flight of stairs, across the gym (WHY my HS designer put the gym on the 2nd floor was a mystery to me - but it was built in the 20’s), down the other flight of stairs, and across the hallway. Repeat 8 times.

In my 5th lap, my right foot laned just fine on the 3rd step from the floor, but my left foot missed the next stair completely, landing on the floor instead. This resulted in a massive twisting of my ankle. I limped painfully for another lap before I said screw it.

Now comes the fun parts. 1. My mom’s a nurse, and 2. half of my classes were on the 2nd story of my school. I don’t know if all Nurse-Mom’s are like this, but since there were no protruding bones or blood, she just said, “Take some Aleve and soak in in warm water. Keep it elevated.” I was limping in nasty pain constantly for a week, had trouble going up and down stairs for a month. Ankle remained swollen for 2 weeks.

THREE MONTHS LATER my mom finally took me to a doctor. Turns out I pulled loose a ligament, which took a small chnk of bone off with it. Had I gone in during the first three weeks of pain, it could’ve been fixed. But three months? Nope.

To this day, I’ll be walking along, ladeda, and my ankle will suddenly buckle under me when that bone bit shifts. I’m not a klutz, but when people first meet me, then tend to think I am, after seeing an ankle episode. My dad’s offered to pay for surgery, but at this point . . . why bother? I just can’t wear lowtop shoes. Needs me some ankle support.

The moral of this long, rambling story?

Doctors are your friend.

8

I got a Boxer’s Break (A/K/A Asshole Break) during randori in judo. Pins are scheduled to come out on the 29th. If the doc is correct, this injury will end up keeping me off the mat for five months.

The only consolation is that my bjj instructor invited me to take TKD after the pins come out, so that I can do something without putting my hand at risk.

9

I forgot. I don’t know how your typing will be affected, so ignore this if it doean’t apply.

I’ve brrn typing w/ my right hand normally, and then hunt-and-peck with my left, using a pencil as my key striking tool. The pencil gives my hand a better angle so that it doesn’t hurt, and the eraser provides better friction on the key surface.

Good luck.

10

So, I went to the doctors today, like the good little kid that I occasionally get told that I should be. Waited around in the waiting room a bit; finally got to see the doc. He proceeded to ask me questions, do some things to my wrist repeatedly that hurt, and said, “I think you have a scaphoid fracture, so I’m going to take X-rays.” Apparently, they can do it there.

So, down the hall I went, for more waiting, then some nice juicy doses of radiation into my injured limb. The first time, the films didn’t come out clearly, so they had to do it again. The doctor looked at them, and pointed out some random white structures. As I am not a doctor, not do I play one on TV, I wasn’t entirely sure what he was pointing at. There are a lot of bones in the wrist and hand. But apparently, the point was that he couldn’t really see anything on the bone he thought was broken (or the rest of them, for that matter).

The upside is that he gave me a trial of Vioxx, which seems to be helping immensely. The downside is I need to go back in about a week for another X-ray. And the splint he gave me is driving me crazy, because it keeps my thumb immobile, too. That makes it even harder to type, seeing how I generally only hit the spacebar with my right thumb. Also, I had to stop by school to get some books, and it’s very hard to open my locker without my right hand. Silly me, being right handed.

And the sig is, according to a reference book in my Spanish class, an idiomatic expression that has the same general meaning as “Do I know you?” said when someone is acting stupid/odd/etc.

And don’t any of you have any tales of “I thought I hurt myself badly, but I was actually fine?”

11

Well, I did get bucked off once and land face-first – had the wind knocked out of me and busted my glasses, but other than that and feeling pretty sore for a couple of days, I was fine. Another time my horse spooked, spun, and slung me off into a bramblebush. With a flailing hoof into my ribs for good measure. Again, no harm done other than a horseshoe-shaped bruise. Does that help? :wink:

I find it ironic that, in all the times I’ve come off a horse, or been stepped on, I never got really hurt, while my shovel-tripping barn accident is the one that did the real damage. :smiley:

12

When I was a wee slip of a marli, I had pet burros. Sweet-natured roly-poly beasts with fuzzy ears that they were, it occurred to me that it would be fun to climb up on Lady Gray’s back and idly pass the time riding along while she ambled around the pasture.

It quickly transpired that Lady Gray did not think this was fun. In fact, judging by the way she laid her ears back and glared at me over her shoulder, I do believe she felt it was a colossal insult. Owing to her generous girth, my seat was very insecure (I felt like I was straddling a barrel) and to this day I’m convinced that that burro, sensing my instability, immediately formulated a Dastardly Plot.

She started off ambling. I tightened my grip with my knees. She choose to interpret this as a command to go faster. I grabbed her sparse mane. She interpreted this as “AAAGGGHHH! The birds!!! THE BIRDS!!!” and broke into a full gallop (well - more of a speedy waddle) straight towards the barn.

Had she been aiming for the door all might still have been well. But she steered for the wall, with me clinging to her neck trying to remain calm and saying “please stop”. I didn’t want to derange her further by screeching at her, you see. Anyway, she bolted almost up to the wall, turning aside at the last minute. I continued in a straight line and slammed into the sheet metal wall, then into the ground, inches from the rusty jagged edge of an old watering trough. When I managed to look up Lady Gray was watching me with a face full of concern and a mouth full of hay.

Knocked all the wind out of me, but no real harm done. No, I take that back. Apparently it knocked some sense out of me as well, because I tried it again the next week with one of the other burros. I wonder if the new owners of that house ever fixed the 13-year-old-girl-shaped dent in the back of the barn.

13

When I was ten I was playing stickball with some friends in the cornfield, and one of my buddies dropped something in the dirt. I went over to help him look for it, and right when I got near him he stood back up. He hit my nose with his skull really hard and it made a snapping noise. My nose did, I mean, not his skull. I saw a bright white light and when I opened my eyes again all I could see was the sky. It took me a second to realize I was lying on my back and another minute or two to realize I still had a nose. It finally reasserted its presence with a great deal of blindingly red-hot pain and we all thought for sure I’d broken my nose.

By dinnertime that evening I was fine, though.

14

Ow, you have my sympathies. I used to take TKD, a couple years back. One day I was warming up before a test (I was trying for my purple belt), did I jump-spin round kick (at least, I think that’s what it was), and landed wrong on my left ankle, which buckled underneath me. I was sure it was broken, but it turned out to just be a sprain, and I was walking on it within a couple days.