Healing Broken Bones
As a twelve-year-old, having a cast was fun. I walked around school with a Sharpie in my pocket so everyone could sign my cast or write "Have a great summer." I got a few laughs for trying to write with my left hand.
That summer our family vacationed in a cottage near the shore. When I realized I couldn't get in the water, my cast wasn't so fun anymore. My brothers and cousins were all having fun in the ocean doing cannonballs and splashing each other, which made me feel like I was unfairly left out. I was mad.
Instead, I spent the summer learning how to skip stones with my left hand. It was a slow start, but eventually I became more skilled with my left hand than I was with my right. I bought a worry rock at the little gift shop near the beach because it was smooth and flat and perfect for skipping. Instead of throwing it way into the deep, I skimmed it along the shallow edge of the tide so I could keep the same stone all summer.
That stone was a comfort to me for several years after that first broken bone. I kept it in the corner of my desk drawer and held it when I got bored with my homework. It had the ocean in it.
The next bone broke in the spring of 2011. I was twenty and living in a sublet in Harlem delivering food on a bicycle. As I sped down a street one day in Manhattan's upper west side, someone opened their car door just as I passed by. As I fell to the ground, the driver stepped out of his white Mercedes SUV to ask if I was okay. At the moment, I only felt a rush of adrenaline and my elbow didn't hurt that bad. It really started to hurt about fifteen minutes later. A kind stranger saw me in pain and walked me to the hospital.
At the hospital, the doctor prescribed painkillers. Before I moved to New York, I was drinking a lot. I would get drunk and become a person who was not me. Moving to a new city was supposed to give me a busier life and help me "slow down" with the booze. Taking the painkillers filled the void created by my reduced alcohol consumption. I worried about painkillers, though only slightly. The opiate epidemic was always on the news and I made a mental note not to fall victim. The dealers on my street had been trying to sell them to me ever since I moved in. The drugs I got from the hospital reminded me they were one of my favorite things. I got relaxed and carefree like I did with alcohol, except I didn't turn into Mr. Hyde. I convinced myself it might work better in a new city, as a cooler person. It didn't work. As they say in recovery, "A drug is a drug is a drug.
The next bones all broke the night of January 19, 2014, in a car crash. Except I can't remember that night. I remember lying on a hospital bed a couple weeks later.
I mistakenly thought a broken ankle would heal the same way my wrist did when I was twelve. I didn't realize it would never be the same as it was before the accident. The metal plates and screws would stay in forever, and from then on I would feel a throbbing ache whenever I tried to run, jump, or stand for too long.
I didn't even notice my broken left hand until I left the hospital. While we were driving home, my mom patted me on the back of my hand. It hurt. I told her it was broken, and she said the doctors were probably too busy treating my serious injuries. She forgot about it and patted my hand a few minutes later.
The broken bone I noticed immediately in the hospital was my face. I'm not sure how many bones that includes, but I'm counting it all as one break: face. My mom took a picture of it the night I crashed the car, but then she thought it better to delete it, and I never saw how it looked. My brain injury hadn't fully healed when my tongue noticed most of my front teeth were gone. That freaked me out. My remaining teeth had metal and rubber bands attached to them. A doctor explained it was so my jaw could heal properly.
The jaw never fully healed either. Sure, I can chew solid food now, but sometimes it clicks and the bite isn't perfectly aligned. It's less noticeable though because I also broke a cheekbone and an eye socket. The asymmetry is more spread out.
In the months following the accident, I hated my new face. The wounds were too fresh for me to shut up and be grateful I survived. I didn't know yet that would get sober and learn to love life again. All I did was complain in my outpatient rehab group. Another patient named Lindsay was nice to me anyway. She brought me coffee so I didn't have to hobble around on crutches. She told me I actually rocked the no-teeth look. That's probably the best compliment I ever received.
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