Snap, Crackle, Pop, OUCH!

First, let me say to those who have been keeping up with my keeping up with Betsy's "How Many?" game, that I know I'm seriously behind. She's had some great topics, too, so I will catch it up because it's been fun to write about them.

But I have a good excuse. I've had the most amazing past three days and I'm still trying to absorb it all and much of my brain has been in freeze mode. I have a massively exciting and previously unexpected event to share with you all, and I'm trying to find the way to put it into words.

But for now, I give you today's topic...

"How many bones have you broken?"

Easy answer. Five. And they're all toes. And subsequently two of them haven't bent since 1983. Seriously.

I smashed the smallest three toes on my left foot walking onto the gymnastics mat during team practice my junior year in high school. You read it right--not by landing a tricky vault, not by missing some slick move on the balance beam. I was walking from the hard floor on to the practice floor mat, and whacked my foot on the side of it. Keep in mind that the mat is probably about two inches thick. That took some talent, baby!

Q: How do you fix a broken toe?
A: You don't. Tape it to another one and be tough.

So I did it again right before college graduation. Ring-finger-type toe on right foot against the leg of the couch. Couch wins. Student wants to walk across the stage at graduation but NOT with the unattractive crutches. Student crams sore foot and still-broken toe into black high heel shoe and hobbles across the stage, hiding the pain rather well. Student is crazy and every once in a while has flashes of pain when said foot is overworked, thereby reminding her that vanity causes more pain than necessary.

Student still has much to learn. But this last time was truly an unavoidable accident...

A sliding cabinet drawer came off its track recently and fell, pointy corner first, onto my second toe, left foot. None of the other toes ever got so purple and so swollen so fast. It was actually a rather cool medical experiment, and I was in a public place so screaming out loud was not an option. Now all that's left to injure is the big toe on my left food and we have a full house.

Broken bones aside, I've further scarred myself with the double hernia surgery I had when I was nine, the C-section baby I delivered 15 years ago (imagine those three scars together and I have a smiley face on my abdomen--TMI!), the carpal tunnel surgery I've had on my left hand, the one I need to have on my right hand, and an odd assortment of stitches and gluing back together of body parts. They haven't required casts (okay, the hand surgery did), but they were nonetheless painful and expensive and trauma-inducing.

Oh yeah--and I'm raising Captain Accident. Colin's broken a wrist (both bones, all the way through at the same time) and a thumb, and he's had any number of sprains, dislocations, tears, rolls, and other sports-related injuries that make me wonder why I keep buying the uniforms and paying the medical bills.

And now I think I need some Tylenol. I hurt just thinking about all this!

What about you?