I still remember the snap-crack of bones breaking. It was a sunny, nice day at Annie’s Daycare. The room was nice and cool and kids laughed and played all around me in the “romper room”. My friend Harriet tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if I would like to play tug-of-war with her. Of course, I eagerly accepted the offer, happy to beat her by way of strength. We searched about the messy room for something to pull on, and wound up grabbing the rod of a since broken mop. To us, the staff seemed long and perfect for playing. I took my end and she took hers and we commenced our game. As we laughed and tugged, I backed up onto a plastic play structure and she followed. The next moments are only flashes in my adult mind, but the sound was so sickening I will remember it forever. She stopped tugging and poked at me, causing me to fall. I put my arm in front of my face instinctively and it collided with the wall and the floor. Snap. I didn’t cry. In fact, I got up and went to tell Annie, the owner of the daycare. I slid down the stairs as children do, and told her. She carried me back up the stairs and set me down, where the pain finally hit me. I couldn’t move. A tiny body isn’t meant to take that much pain, so I lay there until Annie came back and lay me down on a mat for nap time. She must have called my mom because she was there when I woke. She pulled the blanket back and ogled at the odd angle my arm was at. She helped me up and we went out to the car, where my dad was sitting in the drivers seat. We drove the half hour to the hospital and headed into the walk in clinic. I remember my dad and mom talking as we walked, but the topic is fuzzy now. Anything from the parking lot until seeing the doctor is now lost to time, but the treatment is vivid. I was told to lay down on a table and get an IV into my little hand. The nurse was kind, telling me I can kick and scream but keep my hand still. I obliged. Then, I was rolled on a bed to a different room. The doctor tried to pull my long sleeved shirt over my head to reach my injured arm, but it hurt much too bad, so he took a scissors to my favorite sweater. I still have the sliced up shirt. It read “Let it Snow”. 

After that, the doctor explained to my tiny mind what he was going to do. I was terrified. He told me to count backwards from ten, but I didn’t even make it to seven before the anesthesia took me over entirely. When I woke up, I was wheeled in a chair to a room to get my cast. Of course, I was thrilled, always loving to customize anything. I still do. The nurse handed me a chain of swatches to choose from. Being a little girl, I chose hot pink. It took around thirty minutes for me to sit through the plastering, but once it was done, I was much happier. I hopped off of the table and told the nurse, “See you soon!”

She said “I hope not,” with a laugh. As I left, I was given a baby doll with gauze around its arm and a small blanket made by volunteers. I cherish them still. We headed home and it was soon time for my first bath with a cast. My first cast was not waterproof at all, so I had to wrap it up in a plastic bag and hold it up while my parents helped me out. Being a preschooler, that wasn’t out of the ordinary. I remember my dad playing “Under the Boardwalk” with his ukulele while I moved my mermaid toys about in the water. My grandma sent me a book with audio recordings of her voice and my grandpa’s, wishing me a quick and easy recovery. I still miss him.

Soon was Christmas. My family calls it “The Cast Christmas”. We had this holiday at my aunt’s house and my most notable gift was a Nerf Bow. As I handed out presents to other family members, I started to feel ill. Soon enough, I was shivering on the couch with a high fever. My cousin ran into town to fetch medication fit for a child. My aunt set up a movie for me on her big projector screen. It was “Spy Kids”. That movie is immortalized in my brain as a fever dream incarnate. 

Soon enough, it was time to get my cast removed. I had changed the outer layer once, going from pink to rainbow camouflage, but it was officially time to remove the plaster and switch to a brace. Heading in, I was scared of the saw they used to cut the hard casing, but it didn’t hurt me. I vividly remember the strange, raw feeling my arm had as I let it lay limp on the chair beside me. I was fitted with a little brace, and school began just a few days later. The brace on my right arm made it hard to move and write, but I did my best. For getting my cast off, a family member gave me a thrifted doll in a bright blue dress. The ink had stained her plastic skin. She sat beside my injured baby doll for the longest time. 

I have not broken a bone since. Sprained, bruised, cut, but never broken. I was made a careful person because of this. Now, I travel through life as cautiously as I can. I run from bees, I avoid fire, I faint at needles, I get queasy at the thought of the ocean, I panic when the slightest thing goes wrong. I have since gotten over this, but as a kid, after that break, I would run and cry whenever someone else got hurt. As I grew up, that faded, and now I never cry even when I get hurt. I won’t say that I am happy that this happened to me, but I don’t think I would be the same person if it hadn’t. I wouldn’t be as careful, as fearful, as preserved. And I would never have been left with the echoing memory of the snap-crack of my bones.