Childhood injuries....

I think that this problems are more big in the big cities than in little towns like mine... I haven't had personally any experience about...

When I was 5 or 6 years old I had a bad accident on a see saw. The other child jumped off while I was in the air. My chin hit the see saw full speed and split open. I had to have a few stitches. So far I have protected my children from any bad injuries.

I had all sorts of injuries as a kid. When I was 4 1/2 I jumped off the top bunk of my cousin's bunk bed and fractured my ankle. We had been doing it all day and landing on these big foam pads (about 6 inches thick). The last time I climbed up there and remember seeing the pads were not tightly together but thought, what are the odds I would hit the area that wasn't covered. Well that is exactly where my foot landed. OUCH! When I was 7 I fell riding my bike and chipped my front tooth. At 10 I fell while running through the house and wrenched my finger all the way back--sprain it real bad and couldn't straighten it when they put the splint on so it healed weird. When I hold my fingers out straight it is bend at the middle knuckle. I forget what age I was but one summer we were sitting in the back seat of my dad's car. The front seats were folded forward and I had my toes sitting on the ledge of the front seat. Someone came and pushed the front seat back so that it clamped down on my toes. Well my one big toe jammed the latch and they couldn't get the seat to move again and I was stuck and in a lot of pain. I was maybe 6 or so, I think. When I was a teen I was riding my bike and was going down the alley towards where my brother and our friends were playing basketball and the hand brake came loose and went into the spokes of the front wheel, launching me over the handle bars. I remember flying through the air like Superman thinking "this is going to hurt." I landed on one knee and arm, slid about 2 feet, then rolled another 4 or 5 feet before stopping and instinctively covering my head because I was afraid the bike would land on me, but it didn't. I was really messed up--scraped both wrists to my elbows, took a chunk out of one elbow and tore the skin off of both knees and a spot on my chin. I don't remember it hurting that much, though. On and when I was like 6 or so I was running through the house and tripped just as I got to our back door and went head first into the solid oak door. I remember hitting the door and the next thing I remember I was looking at my dad who was freaking out. Up until several years ago I couldn't understand why my dad was so upset but now I know I had given myself a concussion and had lost conscientious. I don't know how long I was out but I scared the crap out of my dad. I am pretty accident prone, lol. The worst my kids have done was my son having his elbow dislocate twice when he was 2. And my oldest fell when she was about 9 months old and put her two tiny bottom teeth into her upper gum and was gushing blood everywhere and I couldn't get it to stop.

My boys (now teens) were a little over two and a little over one at the time. Jumping on the bed. The little guy(the one year old) fell off the edge of the bed and hit the corner of his eye on the bedframe. You know, injuries on the head bleed more than any others. Well I rushed him into the doctors office, small town doctor, no waiting, a couple stitches. I got him home and he promptly tumbled down the stairs as toddlers will do. All I could worry was that he hit his eye and his head. I ran to the bottom of the stairs and picked him up. With a bit of a surprised face he kind of whimpered but didn't cry. He said, "Go see the doctor?" My husband and I could only laugh. A few years later, my older son was about 6 I think. He fell on the ice and cut open his chin while ice skating. Since it was late evening we ended up in the emergency room instead of the local doctor. We waited 6 hours to get a few stitches. The long wait in our emergency rooms is another discussion which in fact I will start right now.