The Story of How I broke My Arm When I Was 9 and Hid it for An Entire Weekend, or I Used To Be A Badass -- BEDA #4

When I was younger I was in Brownies (which is what you go into before you are old enough for Girl Guides*). In Brownies we had weekly meeting, learned skills which would get us badges and once or twice a year we’d go on a weekend camping retreat. We called it camping but there were no tents, we all slept indoor is one giant cabin because really who wants to deal with a bunch of primary schoolers setting up tents.

Now for this story to make sense you should know that my parents were rather overprotective. I generally wasn’t allowed to go to many sleepovers unless my parents were close with my friend’s parents and I never got to go to any other sleep away camp other than that glorious weekend Brownie camp once or twice a year. Naturally 9 year old Sue super excited for these weekends. They were an entire weekend of campfires, skits, and best of all, no parents to look forward to. When it came time for camp I excitedly packed up my weekend bag and air mattress. Actually in retrospect considering I was 9 and not particularly responsible (as this story will prove)  I probably just danced around with excitement while my parents packed for me.  I (My parents)  also made sure to pack lots of Mr. Noodle’s packets. I was the only vegetarian kid attending camp and I would get the cooks to make me Mr. Noodles every time they were serving meat. In retrospect, I am a bit concerned that my parents were fine with me surviving off basically just Mr. Noodles, smores and toast for an entire weekend. Of course 9 year old me didn’t care, 9 year old me was too excited about camp to care also I rather liked Mr. Noodles and wasn’t at an age where I questioned the nutritional value of my food.

When it came time to leave for camp we all packed into the car along with my clothing/ Mr. Noodles bag and my inflatable mattress and made the one hour trek to the place where camp was being held. Once we arrived my parents inflated my mattress and got me settled in and then left.  I was FREE at last! I ran around talking to my friends and doing all the things that 9 year olds do.

And that’s when it happened.

High on my freedom I decided to skip rope with my friend. We were doing that thing that kids do where two people jump the same rope at a time. Now it should be said that 9 year old Sue, much like adult Sue, was a klutz. We ended up getting tangled in each other’s legs and falling. When I fell I managed to land with all my weight on my left arm and since I was the one skipping behind, my arm ended up taking not only my weight but also that of my friend who landed on me. With my arm hurting a lot I decided to sit out the next few rounds of skip rope figuring my arm would stop hurting eventually.  

I didn’t.

In fact, later that night while during a fire drill and while running back into the building one girl tripped and fell over. This caused the girl behind her to trip, and the one behind her, and so on. In the end we basically ended up have a 10 kid pile up.  In our defence, it was dark out so we couldn’t see that other kids that had fallen already. When I inevitably tripped up on the pile of girls on the ground my body’s defence mechanisms kicked in and my arms automatically reached out so to protect me from falling face first into the gravel. I ended up falling with my weight on my arm again. Once our troop leaders got us untangled and got us all inside my arm really hurt like hell (or heck, as I would have said in those days).  

Now this is where we really distinguish the thought processes of adult Sue from 9 year old Sue. Adult Sue tends to over react to injuries and is a bit of a whiny bitch when it comes to these things. For example, just today I cut my hand on the inside of a can while cooking and my thought process went a little something like this:

If adult Sue had hurt her arm as badly as 9 year old Sue had she would have whiney about it to anyone that would listen and demand to be taken to the hospital, or at least to given some painkillers and ice.

But 9 year old Sue’s mind didn’t work like that. 9 year old Sue was focused on camp. She realized that if she told anyone about her arm, or if anyone caught on her parents would be called and she would be sent home, missing the rest of camp.  It went down a little something like this:

My arm hurt like hell the entire weekend. I remember I couldn’t even sleep that night because of the pain. I just lay on my inflatable mattress looking out the window waiting for daylight. But my mind was made up. I loved camp. I wanted to stay at camp and I actually managed to avert detection all weekend**.  I did, however, manage to bang my arm another time before the end of the weekend.

When my parents finally arrived to pick me up after camp on Sunday I told them about my arm and they immediately drove me to the ER at the local children’s hospital. All the while lecturing me about calling them when I hurt myself. At the ER I was informed I had chipped a piece of bone off of my arm and was fitted with a cast which I had to wear for a few weeks. Every time someone saw my cast and asked me what had happened I’d get to tell them the story of how I broke my arm at camp and hid it for the entire weekend. And every time I felt like a badass.

Surprisingly, I was allowed to go to go to subsequent weekend Brownie camps after the incident but I was required to call home every night and check in so my parents would be sure I wasn’t hiding more injuries.    

*Girl Guides is similar to Girl Scouts if you are unfamiliar.

** It should be noted here that it wasn’t a clean break so the arm wasn’t dangling at an awkward angle. This would explain why the adults leading the camp didn’t notice.