My elbow is contuted

To begin celebrating the end of 2007, Andrew and I went ice skating at Seven Peaks with Josie and David. My mom watched Rachel for us at our apartment where they could be warm and cozy.


We started off well enough. Josie rented some figure skates but she didn't like them so she traded them in for hockey skates. Unfortunately for her, she had pulled off into a box to retie her skate just before the Zamboni came out so she had to skate from the box and off the ice with one of her skates untied.


I was glad that she got the hockey skates because she kept wanting tips from me about how to skate on figure skates. I'm not really a good skater so I couldn't help her out that much--you go forward...and if you're really brave you go backwards. David is a pretty good skater though so he was able to help her with her hockey skates. There's a very big difference between figure skates and hockey skates.

Well, we all made it off the ice and waited for the Zamboni to finish cleaning the ice. David was being rather rebellious.


I was happy to get onto the freshly cleared ice. It's a good feeling. You feel like you're flying, weightless, across the ice. You can hear your blades cutting into the newly healed rink, marking your own path. The wind rushes past your face as smoothly as your skates glide across the ice.

And then someone going in exactly the wrong direction skates right into you.

That's not a good feeling. But that's what happened to me.

Some girl (I'll peg her as a high schooler) decided to skate diagonally across the rink to join her friends. This said girl, who was probably 50 or 60 pounds heavier than I, was an even worse skater than I. She was sailing across the rink to join her little posse, consisting of her friends and some of her sisters. Being unable to stop when she reached her destination, she turned her body so she was going against the direction of traffic.

That's when we collided. We grabbed each other but her momentum was no match for mine. I flew backwards and landed flat on my back, right on top of my elbow. Seconds later this girl was on top of me. Not pleasant.

She said sorry and asked if I was okay and then jumped up and skated off.

I peeled myself off the ice and hobbled over to the exit. Hobbling on skates is very difficult.

My tail bone hurt. My shoulder hurt. My neck hurt. My head hurt. But worst of all my right arm hurt.

My hand was shaking uncontrollably and I had pain shooting up and down my arm. My fingers were tingly. My elbow felt like it got left behind on the ice. In general I was just not a very happy person.

I stood by the rink watching all the many faces fly past, looking for some relation of mine. Finally I saw two little faces that look kind of like mine zoom by.

I waved my good arm at them and choked, "Go get Andrew!"

Andrew came and I told him my sob story. David went and talked to the paramedics. They put me in the first aid room and treated me for shock, took and accident report, and checked out my arm.

Getting my pulse taken(note the smirk)

Meanwhile, Andrew keeps asking about the "girl" that hit me.

"Is she okay, is she alright?"

"She's fine. She just hopped up and skated off."

"You skated off, too--is the little girl alright? Did you even check?"

"Little girl?" I asked, "She was bigger than me!"

"Oh, alright then. I feel no remorse for her."

He then turned his full attention to me.

We waited in the first aid room for a while, icing my arm, trying to see if the tingling sensation would go away. It didn't.

We went home and fed Rachel and waited for the tingling sensation to go away. It didn't.

We drove all the way to the InstaCare facility. My arm was still tingly and painful. Every bump in the road was horrible.

Two hours had passed since the collision on the rink. Surely my arm would feel a little better. It didn't.

We got to the InstaCare facility. Wouldn't you know they were closed? I tell you, every time I have a quazi-emergency it happens on a weekend or holiday or after 10 o'clock at night.

We went to Andrew's parents' house to grab some food, even though they weren't home. We debated what we should do. My arm was starting to feel a little better but it was still numb and painful.

After his parents got home, we decided to go to the ER. His parents took Rachel back to our place and we headed to Orem Community Hospital.

One hundred dollars, two hours, and three x-rays later...we find that my arm is not broken. Instead we found that my "injury has resulted in a contusion--a crushing of the deep tissues."

In other words it is very ouchy but there is little they can do for it. I fell with all my (and the girl who fell on me) weight on a lovely little nerve in my elbow--thus the tingly feeling and shooting pains. Elbows, Dr. Roberts (who saw my dad for his heart back in August) tells us, are amazing inventions--they have great shocks and are "designed" to carry the weight of our entire body without breaking. Thus the reason why football players can elbow other big, big players without ill effects.

He said I should get better in a few days if I didn't bend and lift things. Then he asked if I typically bend and lift things. So I said that I was a stay-at-home mom.

In that case, he informed me, it could take two or three weeks to get back to "normal."

The nurse came in, after we waited for 5 minutes ER-standard time (or 35 minutes regular time), and gave me a sling and a prescription. Then we rushed out the door.

Rachel had been "without" me for six (or more) hours, minus the one piddly feeding I gave her when we came home from skating. She was not a very happy person although she was rather happy to see Andrew and me.

(I'm smirking again...)

I feel bad that all we did when we got home was put her to bed. I didn't really see her all day! We missed each other...but it kinda hurts to hold her so it's probably good that it's bedtime for her. Perhaps I'll feel more up to cuddling her in the morning.