My little mishap

So back in May (Tuesday, the 19th to be exact) I went to our ward softball practice like normal and after warming up I took my usual spot in left field (cause that's where you get the most action). Paul was up to bat and the second hit of the night came to me. I ran hard to the left and dove for it.

Well...

To my extreme satisfaction and I'm sure the pride of my parents and maybe some of my friends, I caught the ball...but...rather than my glove sliding along the ground after the catch like normal, my glove hand completely caught on the ground and I kind of awkwardly rolled over it. I felt a pop or at least something definitely not normal. I ripped my glove off, with the ball still in it, and started walking off the field. My friends Rachel and Ben came right over and looked at it. I could already start to see a bulge right on top of my hand. Rachel did some little tests and we decided we should definitely go to the quick care.

So Ben and Rachel took me to the Instacare where they said it was definitely broken (and the bulge was the bone sticking up, ew). The doctor wrapped it in a splint and told me to go see an orthopedic specialist because I would probably need surgery. Luckily though, when I went to the orthopedic surgeon a couple days later he said the bone was still in good alignment (in fact if you look at the xray of the top of my hand you almost can't tell it's broken) and all the ligaments and everything intact so no surgery was needed. Phew.

After the instacare Ben and Rachel and I ran around trying to find an open pharmacy and finally found one after 3 tries.

The funniest part though? As we were driving back to the field Rachel got a call, the rest of the softball group was locked inside the field! It was kind of funny telling them about my hand with a fence in between us until a guy came with the key to let them out.

Here are a couple of the x rays...



So I had to wear this thing for a while.



Here's what it looked like, although I forgot to take pictures until a couple weeks after it happened. So this is the no-so-swollen version.



The doctor specifically told me NOT to play sports for 2 months. Ya, that ain't gonna happen. Besides my broken pinky in kindergarten (playing football mind you) this is the first injury I've ever had. I've never had to sit out of a single game because of an injury...ever. In fact, when I told BJ I had broken my hand the first thing he said to me was, "Well you're about due." No sympathy, no nothin' :).

My friends took me to a movie the next night so I wouldn't try to play soccer with the ward. I honestly have the best friends in the world, from Ben and Rachel dropping everything to take me to the Instacare, to Jamen being at my house when I got home that night to ask how I was doing, to Paul being my "escort" to the movie so I didn't have to drive, to a bunch of texts asking how what happened and how the team was really going to be hurting without me, etc, etc. My friends are the best!!

Oh, one more funny thing. Two days after I broke my hand, a group of friends went to Cafe Rio. Well Brian S. showed up and he was wearing the same kind of splint that I had on. We found out that he had broken his hand in pretty much the same place (except his was on the ring finger, mine the middle), on the same day, at almost the same time of night!! Crazy.


It was kind of nice not being the only gimp at softball, batting one-handed and playing Jim Abbott style in the field (I put the glove on my right hand to catch the ball, then I would take the glove off, put it under my other arm, take the ball out and throw with my right hand). It was pretty awesome but I'm definitely glad to be able to play normally again. The bone is still sticking up a little bit so you can see the bump but it doesn't really hurt at all anymore.

So that was my little summer adventure.

p.s. The hardest thing for me to do with a broken hand? Put my dang hair in a ponytail, that hurt more than anything!