This'll be a 3-part entry where I 'walk through' the process of fracture management. Just a reminder: these are techniques I have used in the past and from trial & error have learned that they work for me. My suggestions that usually come at the conclusion of each entry will be at the end of the final part in this series.
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At this point I have long forgotten what it was I was trying to reach for, but I remember I was alone in my room and everyone else was busy being together. Sitting in my rigid pink manual wheelchair I squirmed my way into a kneeling position in the seat, then grabbed the arm rests on either side and pushed myself slowly up to a stand. First I reached out with my right hand, the weaker one, and shifted more weight onto the left side of my body. When my fingers gripped the shelf I moved my left hand over and grinned to myself. I could finally see The Top Shelf, the one where all my older brother's "cool things" were kept. These "cool things" were never actually defined to me, I just knew there were things up there that I wanted to know about. After I had satisfied my curiosity and searched enough amongst the mysterious depth of The Top Shelf I could feel my legs and arms getting tired, it was time to sit back down. That's when it happened.
The moment happened while I was mid crouch, one leg was bent and the other was just about to fold neatly beneath me but instead a mess spilled forth. Many of you have experienced this disaster, it's oddly contained but wreaks havoc in that area, like the epicenter of an earthquake. The reverberations could be felt as it spread around my femur, throwing my psyche into a sprawling and flailing helpless thing - completely unlike the usual calm and mischievously quiet it usually is. Soon the ripples crept up my throat in a frenzy and the numbness that rooted itself in the crack had found a voice in my scream.
I stayed in that mid action position even though it hurt, but it hurt even more if I budged even the slightest. In those moments I am certain that the only muscle that won't hurt a fracture are the muscles that make a smile. But try to tell anyone to smile in that moment, and you tell me how they respond. My dad was the first one into my room, the first look he gave me and he knew the whole story. He grabbed me under the arms and as my body collapsed into his huge hands my hands gripped the slowly waking monster in my thigh. I tried to keep it calm, to keep the monster from bursting out of my skin. I always fail in this struggle and even at that age I knew it would be hopeless, but I try to grip anyway, I tried to hold everything together.
Dad put me on my bed and didn't have to ask questions. My entire body was contorted towards my left side, it didn't take long for me to start sweating - this only made me try to grip harder as I didn't want my fingers to slip. Since I don't have children of my own I don't know what it's like to watch your child in agony, but I do know that what sounds like static screams to others speaks the hard truth to a parent's ears. It was rare for my parents to ever have to ask me "what happened?" They somehow always just knew.
By this point my mother had rushed upstairs and opened my "cast closet" the closet that held every spica cast, splint, sling, and ace bandage that had ever touched my body. After she found the necessary one she ran downstairs and nudged my dad aside. I whimpered as she edged closer to me and in that pathetic sound I was telling her that it would hurt to move, she understood and slowly knelt down.