E ao que sofre dores

And he who suffers pains

When I was looking at what the titles of my posts would be this month, this was one of the few days I actually knew what I was going to be writing about. Almost three years ago I wrote about how my body is falling apart in a blaze of glory. Since starting this blog I’ve written about several different injuries I’ve had. But I have yet to write down the grand list of injuries. I’ve had so many that I forget a few now too. So this will be good for me. I’ve had at least one major injury/doctor visit a year since 1996.

1996 – Dislocated my right knee playing “Do you love your neighbor?” at Young Women’s activity. Spent three weeks thinking it wasn’t that serious, and then another three weeks in a leg brace after I realized it was that serious. I remember putting “a cross between musical chairs and duck-duck-goose” on the insurance form to explain how it happened. I’d just stood up from the chair. I didn’t fall. I didn’t get hit. I just stood up.

1997 – Sprained wrist after falling off a small cliff in southern Utah. Best part, I’d done two things that week that required a signed form saying I knew they were dangerous things but I was doing them anyway (going down the bobsled run in Park City and running the Deseret News Marathon). And I didn’t get hurt doing those. I got hurt hiking the mountains with my family. (see 2002 as well)

1998 – Sprained back and shoulder. This is one that I’m still dealing with. I spent four hours one morning using a back pack weed sprayer for my job working grounds at BYU. By the end of that morning, the rest of my life had been changed. My shoulder has never been the same.

1999 – There’s a pretty good chance I cracked my nose that year. But I never went to the doctor for it.

1999 (again) – Part of the toe nail on my right big toe was surgically removed two days before Christmas. That was a fun way to spend the first Christmas in Brasil. I still have the scar.

2000 – I developed tendonitis on the top of first my right foot (see yesterday’s post about my foot hurting so bad I couldn’t walk), and then my left.

2001 – Both of my arches fell. I still wear orthotics in my running shoes. By March my feet hurt so bad that the only shoes I could wear were my tennis shoes and even then I was in a lot of pain at the beginning of every day with those first steps and at the end of the day with the last. It’s a good thing my mission was only 18 months long, I could not have walked another 6.

2002 -Concussion. I took a break from working on my final projects the last week of class to go play laser tag with some friends. During one of the games I found myself trapped in a tunnel and decided to just make a run for it through all the people shooting at me to get out of the tunnel. I stood up too soon at the end of the tunnel and smacked the side of my head against a 2×4. The adrenaline of the game kept me going till the game was over. But after the game ended I had a real large goose egg on my forehead. I had difficulty standing. I was limited in how I could move my head for a week (no looking down because that would rush everything to the bump and it would throb). And I was real sensitive to light and sound for a while too. I went back to the computer lab after the game because I needed to get my program to work and the lab didn’t close till midnight. The next day I had to pause walking to my classes because I couldn’t walk that far. And I was kicked out of my very last class at BYU that evening because the professor said I looked like death and told me to go sleep. I went to the computer lab instead. I needed to get that program to work by midnight.

2002 (again) – Wrist surgery. The wrist I sprained in 1997 had developed a cyst as a result. Shortly after graduating from BYU I figured I had time that summer (no job, no class, not really much of anything), so I finally went to the doctor for the wrist pain I was having. I told him I had a dent in my wrist. He said, “no, you have a bump.” This was on a Thursday. He then asked me what I was doing the next Wednesday. We scheduled my surgery for that Wednesday.

2003 – Wisdom teeth removal. Nope, I didn’t have to have them out before my mission. Mine came in straight and I had plenty of room for them too. Except the gums at the back of my mouth were covering them. The dentist told me I could either brush as good as I could and hope nothing ever got stuck under there and they rotted out, or he could pull them. We opted to remove them. Three of them broke while he was taking them out so he had to pull them out in pieces. I wasn’t on gas or knocked out for it, he’d just numbed my mouth.

2004 – Bruised foot bones. This one was kind of funny. I was at a party and a friend of mine didn’t realize I was behind her talking to someone else when she stepped backwards and stepped on my foot with her high heel. I wore a shoe thing that kept my foot from bending for a month.

2005 – A black-eye from a stomach virus. I never have real good exciting stories. I get a black-eye, the whole left side of my face is bruised and swollen, and I don’t even have an exciting story about it. I’d spent the night waking to throw-up and on one of my trips to the bathroom I must have stood too fast for my weakened condition because I only made it to the bathroom door before I passed out. I face planted on the bathroom scale (so so very lucky I didn’t hit my head on the sink, toilet, or tub, which were all within reach). I woke up and wondered why my pillow was so cold and hard, remembered where I was, threw-up, and then got an ice pack for my face. We ended up doing an x-ray on my face just to make sure I hadn’t cracked my check bone.

2005 (again) – Radio Frequency Lesioning on my neck (see 1998). In an effort to get my shoulder and neck back to a functioning level, the doctor did radio frequency lesioning, which is just a fancy name for putting a big needle in my neck and running electricity through it to shut off the agitated nerves. They electrocuted my nerves. The insurance bill called it “destruction” which I got a kick out of.

2006 – Sprained right ankle. I’m really not sure if this should fall in 2006 or 2005, because I did it leaving one New Year’s party to head to another one. Apparently you are not supposed to run on the side of your foot. But I’m counting it on 2006 because I did the doctor visits and physical therapy for it in 2006. (Belly dancing and physical therapy; Ouch)

2006 (again) – More radio frequency lesioning (see 2005). More physical therapy. If I’d had better physical therapy in 1998, I probably wouldn’t have so many problems. Oh well.

2007 – Bruised arm. A bruise might not seem that big a deal, but you have to see the pictures (yes, I took pictures). Otherwise I can count continued neck and shoulder problems for the year. My neck completely froze on me more than once, basically immobilizing me for a day or so. And always doing stupid things, like putting on a hat to go outside and man the cross walk at school or washing my hair in the shower.

2008 – Strained ligaments in my right ankle.

2009 – ?

And at least half that stuff was after I stopped praying for humility! Praying for humility seemed to land me at the doctors. Maybe this is just catch up from all the prayers still.