I was seven years old and had aspirations to be the next Mary Lou Retton when I decided to throw on my American Flag leotard and trot to the backyard to play. I had been watching the ’84 Summer Olympics and Mary Lou was in the lead. I looked over at our swing set and my vivid imagination saw uneven bars that were begging for me to swing from them. I gently climbed up the side, shimmied over to the middle of the bar that held the swings, and started kicking my legs back and forth to gain the momentum I needed to try to do a flip. After several valiant tries I gave up. Defeated, I stared up at the swing set. Suddenly, my bright seven year old mind began to go to work.
After a long five minutes of staring and intense (well as intense as any normal seven year old can be) thinking, I knew what I had to do!! Once again I climbed up to the bar where the swings were tightly fastened. Instead of going to the middle and hanging down this time, I kept on going up. I climbed up on TOP of the bar and precariously tip-toed my way to the center. (Thank God I was good on the balance beam!!) I steadied myself and began to count. My heart was thumping and my mind was screaming, “I’m on top of the world!!” When my counting reached 5, I launched myself into the air and curled into what I thought was a beautiful somersault. A split-second after I tucked my head to my chest, just like my gymnastics coach had taught me, I was face down in the dirt.
After a moment, when the adrenaline rush began to subside, I shakily rose my head and that’s when the pain started. It was like a flash of lightning, white hot and electric. I looked back down at the dirt, a mere inch from my nose, and realized that my left arm was underneath me and I could not move. I started yelling and crying for my mom, who was in the house doing the dishes from supper. When she didn’t rush right out to me, I got to my feet and began to walk as fast as I could, hunched over to protect my injured left arm that was tucked close to my stomach. When I reached the back door mom was there. I was bent almost in half, obscuring the view of my arm. My mother said, “Jenny, Jenny!! Why are you screaming? What happened? What hurts?” The look on her face scared me and I only began to cry even more, now afraid I had done something horribly wrong. When a couple of minutes of mom begging me to tell her what was wrong and me just snorting and coughing and crying in reply had gone by, my mom stood me up, grabbed my left arm and yanked.
According to my mother, in that moment there was an audible click-clack and apparently I paled to the color of a sheet. Me? I don’t really recall that moment or several moments afterwards. The next thing I remember is my mom crying, yelling for my dad, and telling my two sisters to get their stuff and come on.
We all bundled into our old, brown station wagon and drove to University Medical Center so I could see a doctor. When we arrived, I was in a great deal of pain and I absolutely could not move my entire left arm. I was scared to death and the antiseptic smell of the hospital certainly wasn’t helping to calm me down. A nurse in blue scrubs called my name from the nurses’ desk and we all got up, as a family, and followed her to a small exam room that held an examination table, a green metal chair, and a small counter with a sink.
The nurse busied herself taking my blood pressure, temperature, and pulse while my sisters huddled in a corner, whispering, and mom and dad stood there looking tired and dazed. A moment later, the doctor whisked into the room and asked me what happened. I must admit, I was a little fascinated by all the gadgets and gizmos in the room, but now it was time to tell my story.
I told the doctor that I was in gymnastics and Mary Lou Retton was my favorite girl gymnast. Then I went on to tell him what I had done, pausing dramatically at the part when I jumped, and promptly began to cry, muttering, “I’m sorry mama. I really am. I thought I could do it.” The doctor patted me on my uninjured side and said, “It’ll be ok. We are going to do some x-rays and see what’s going on in there.” I smiled weakly up at him and nodded.
The x-rays hurt. The lady who did them made me move my left arm every which way. When she was done, she just looked at me and rolled me right back to my room. My mom, dad, and sisters were still there waiting, chatting back and forth about their day. I was really nervous and just wanted to be done and go home.
About 45 minutes later, the doctor came back in with a somber look on his face. He said, “Well young lady, it looks like you broke both of the bone in your forearm clean through!! I really think your mom over there actually set your bones when she yanked it away from your stomach.” At that point mom chimed in, “I only did that because she couldn’t tell me what had happened and I thought she had hurt her stomach.” The doctor nodded patiently and smiled. Then he went on to say, “Your lucky because that means no surgery for you. All you need is 6–8 weeks in a cast and you’ll be good as new. I’m going to give you something to help with the pain and after they put on your cast ya’ll can go home. Take care of yourself and one thing, No more jumping off the swing set. Got it?” Miserably I nodded my head and began to cry.
The nurse came in, gave me two round white tablets, and prepared to cast my arm. About 20 minutes later, my body and mind felt like they were floating and I didn’t have a care in the world. It seemed like just a moment when the cast was finished, there was a flurry of paper and pens as my parents handled the discharge papers, and then all of a sudden we were in the drive through at McDonald’s getting happy meals.
I don’t remember much from that night except one thing. Those two white, round tablets that made everything in my world feel ok. Interesting.
Needless to say, my arm healed, I went back to my routine of school, Brownies, gymnastics repeat,and although I never attempted to do a double flip lay-out from the top of the swing set again, I still idolized Mary Lou Retton and aspired to be just like her when I grew up. I wonder what happened?
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