And continued during my teenie years.

Yesterday I told you how my bad injury karma started at a young age. Today I will tell you how it continued during my preenie years (aka pre-teen) and on to my teenage years at of course no fault of my own.

I think I had a relatively mild elementary school once I got past kindergarten. Since I started school with the whole arm being strapped to my chest thing, I wasn't instantly the coolest kid on the block. But once I had four working extremities again, my natural American Gladiator tendencies returned and I quickly joined in with the group that chased boys at recess. I had a crush you see. Actually I was pretty sure that I was in L.O.V.E with Nick. He rode my bus, had a cute little boy face and always had the coolest packed lunches. So we chased the boys and I chased Nick. One fine day, while sitting down on the magic reading carpets, I received my first kiss from a boy right before nap time from ... Nick.

Happy happy joy joy until another fine day shortly after when while chasing the boys at recess, we cornered them into the tire house and surrounded it. Nick did what any young man does when surrounded by women, use any force possible to escape and somehow I got popped in the nose and my glasses (see previous photo) got broken. It was the beginning of the end of our love and I had to go to the nurse for the bloody nose.

Once I learned to read in first grade, I became a "reader" so this may be the explanation as to why I don't remember any real injuries for quite some time. I did have an amazing talent for getting stung in strange places by several hornets a summer. And I am a sweller. I remember not being able to swallow for awhile when one flew in my mouth. But overall, pretty injury free. I did contract a strange disease in third grade in which I had to live in a bubble for a month, but otherwise, a-ok.*

By the time middle school rolled along though, the biggest injuries faced on daily basis were to our young bratty girl psyche. This was the time of the daily girl group on group wars and subsequent visits to the guidance counselor. It wasn't pretty and I would never want to be a 13-year-old girl again.

Then in sixth grade, my bad luck returned with a vengeance. I was part of a science club (but it was coooooool, I promise) and we would stay after school to practice for the Science Olympiad. One day while creating suspension bridges out of wood to hang weights off of, I literally cut off the tip of my thumb. Not like the whole thumb tip, but just the epidermis layer + a little dermis for good measure. Enough blood that the mom was called and I was taken to the ER. No stitches were given because I didn't really have the "flap", but to this day I have a really unusual thumb print on my right hand (imagine a smooth spot) and I think I would make a terrible robber because of it.

Also, I got my first real boyfriend** in sixth grade and shockingly right after I decided I wanted to dump him, he fell off a water slide and was put into a body cast for four months and I had to wait to dump him until after he healed so I wouldn't look like a be-otch. Plus I had to bike to his house and visit him and all I wanted to do was go flirt with someone else. So I waited until the day he got back to school and BAM, see ya charley. But karma got me in the end in a very appropriate way that summer by my very own water accident.

That summer, I went for a couple of days to this lake with my best friend to water ski & tube and probably giggle also as I am sure we were excellent at. I had never water skied before, but what I lacked in skill, I made up for in determination that I would figure it out. I think I wiped out no less than 30 times before finally getting up that first time, so I recall being quite sore the whole week. We also spent a good part of the time water tubing which in and of itself is a sadistic and painful activity invented by masochists. In a moment that would forever cure me of my need to water tube, my friend and I were on a single tube each holding onto one handle for dear life trying to stay on the bucking bronco of a tube when we saw the rope go slack...way slack...bad slack. The kind of slack that rips your arms out of your socket when it becomes unslacked slack.

So I do the smart thing, I let go immediately. My friend waits a millisecond later till her arm is almost decapitated (is that word just for heads?) before letting going and somehow in the pileup that followed I obtained a kick to the face that knocked me out for a couple of seconds. I remember coming to in the water, bathing suit all askew and seeing blood on my hand when I touched my face. I thought I broke my nose and was spitting out blood, but when the boat pulled up they were all like, oh your eye. My eye... really? Apparently I had split my eyelid open and they could see things behind it. So off we went to the ER and I got five stitches in my eye. There must not be many nerves in your eyelid because it never really hurt, but it was a weird experience watching a needle that close to your eye. Everything else healed, but that was the end of my tubing days. I just punch myself in the face if I feel the urge and the memories squelch it.

Well this is longer than I thought it was going to be so I will save high school for another day. But off the top of my head, I can think of three ER visits and several other exciting stories for then.

*Just kidding! My friend did though for reals.
**Oh and in case you were wondering, those bangs are what got me those boyfriends peeps. They were hotttt.