Friday Five--Boo Boos!

As is my habit on Fridays, here's the RevGalBlogPals Friday Five meme. Thanks Songbird!

1) Are you a baby about small injuries?
Not really. I've fairly accident-prone, so I'm fairly used to a scrape here, a cut there, and a burn elsewhere. I usually wince, say, "Ow!" and move on.

2) What's the silliest way you have ever hurt yourself?
I have four nominations--not sure which is the worst. But they all involve falling, oddly enough. Not so oddly, I do have a fear of heights and of falling!

My senior year of high school, I was in the spring musical ("Carousel"), and working at the local mall after school. A bus ran by school directly to the mall, and there happened to be a bus at, I think, 4:45, which got me to the mall by 5 so I could work until 9. One day we were late getting out of play practice, and as I came to the parking lot I had to cross to get to the bus stop, I saw the bus coming. Afraid I would miss it, I took off running--not a good idea in platform shoes! I fell hard, scraping my right knee and the heel of my right hand to tatters (not to mention my stockings!). My job that night was sitting at a slow register putting price tags on hair colour, so I could sit down.

Then, at a friend's family reunion, I fell again. It was just dusk, and I was crossing their yard, when I fell into a shallow drainage ditch I didn't know was there! I hadn't been to the house before (it was their summer trailer by the lake), so my unfamiliarity with the lay of the land and the dim light, not to mention the Dr. Scholl's (R) I was wearing combined to make me stumble and fall flat on my face. The worst of it was that I was about 19, and the crowd assumed I had been testing the beer in the keg on the back porch--and I hadn't. I was mortified to have fallen front of so many people, most of them strangers. It was a running joke the rest of the (very long) weekend.

And like Songbird, I fell off a curb. It was December 23, I was a newly-wed going to my in-laws for our first Christmas. I had worked the 3-11 shift at the hospital, and we were leaving right from the hospital (where I worked) to my in-laws'. My husband pulled up near the curb, I stepped off to get in the car, and fell as my ankle twisted under me. By the time we got to my in-laws', it was swollen; the next morning=Christmas Eve!--when we got up, I couldn't put my shoe on that foot. I went to their family doctor, got an x-ray and an Ace bandage, and spent the holidays on the couch with my foot up.

Finally, when we lived in Germany, at a village fair, I was crossing a railroad track (in a field, not at a crossing) on foot and carrying my son, who was a toddler. As I stepped on the gravel, I felt my foot give way, and instinctively twisted to fall under TO, instead of on top of him. I did it, but pulled a muscle in my back that still bothers me from time to time.

None of those are really funny (although my friend's family thought the one was); all a bit odd, though!

3) Who took care of your boo-boos when you were a child?
Oh, my mom or one of my older sisters. Merthiolate and a bandage!

4) Are you a good nurse when others have boo-boos?
Boo boos, yes--blood doesn't bother me. Digestive upsets, yuck. I once knew a nurse who hated the sight of blood, believe it or not. She did NOT work in surgery!

5) What's the worst accidental injury you've suffered? Did it require a trip to the Emergency Room?
When I was about five, I put my arm through a window and needed stitching up. I still have a "J" shaped scar on my right upper arm from it. We didn't go to the ER, though--in those days, you went to the doctor's office and got hustled in ahead of everyone who stared at you, startled and horrified at all the blood.

You know, in putting this together, I had to think about all the times I've hurt myself. I am accident prone! There's the cut on my arm, one on my hand, between my toes (don't ask; that should be number five of the silly accidents), sprained ankles (three times), sprained knee, back muscle, innumerable falls (including two while I was pregnant), several burns and cuts in the kitchen, and three minor car accidents. If you suscribe to the theory that we get hurt when we aren't happy with ourselves, then I was suppressing some major anger from time to time. On the other hand, perhaps I was just distracted and thinking Great Thoughts.