The Time We Broke My Collar Bone

And I don’t mean the “royal” we. It really was a joint effort.

When we were still a family of four we traveled to Branson Missouri for a family reunion. It was a week full of family fun. On our last day there everyone headed to the waterpark for the afternoon. We had such a fun afternoon playing with the kids. They are big fans of water spraying every which way.

They were so cute and little then

We were even able to slip away and hit some of the water slides sans little people. Thanks to plenty of  aunts and uncles. As it neared closing time we decided to make one more run. The slide we chose had the option to go down as doubles. Naturally, being so in love as we are, we thought this was the way to go. As we sat in the inner tube, before heading down the slide, in jest I told him not to flip us. As we headed down the slide we started going faster and faster. When we neared the last turn we were going so fast that we took the turn on its side and by the end of it had fallen out of the inner tube and I landed on my shoulder. We tumbled somewhat down the rest of the way and I remember David pulling me up in the water. I was in so  much pain I thought I was seeing stars. He decided I needed to go to the medics office. I don’t remember much besides filling out the incident report and thinking that the guy didn’t know what he was talking about. He thought I had a concussion when I fumbled on repeating back the last four digits of my social security number. The truth is that David’s and mine are so similar it takes me a moment to figure out who’s is who’s.

I finally convinced the guy I was fine enough to leave. As the evening wore on I found I could hardly lift my arm without being in a huge amount of pain. The next day we left for home and the drive was miserable. I kept thinking I would be fine after a couple of days. I’m kind of a “shake it off, tough it out” kind of girl. And I did try. I even went back to work and everything. After a few days, though, it wasn’t any better and my shoulder had turned yellow as the bruising made it’s way to the surface. I finally went in to see a doctor.  He asked if I had colored on it with a highlighter. I wish now that I could have come up with a better response to that than, “no.” Thinking I might have done something to the muscles he ordered an MRI. The results came back that I didn’t do anything to the muscles but I did break my collar bone. So for the next six weeks or so my left arm was out of commission.

And that is how we broke my collar bone.