When my older brother injured his tibia in high school from a pole vaulting accident, I pretty much just rolled my eyes. From this instance it's arguable that I am just a soul-less person. Or maybe I'm just a cruel younger sister who has no sympathy. My thinking was "You got to fly through the air and leap over a bar, why are you crying?!" 
Okay fine. I understood that the muscle spasms killed at night. And every time he mistakenly moved it during his sleep, because his body 'forgot', it probably also killed too. I will say though, watching Timmy sit in the cast room at Children's Hospital from the other side of the curtain was bizarre. My body kept telling me this is a trick of the mind, that's really you sitting there!

Having the attitude of "been there & done that" when it comes to fractures, I have long ago forfeited a 'normal' pain threshold. It also seems that I threw out the window a 'normal' risk management scale. But this second scale isn't necessarily something that naturally comes with having O.I. It's cultivated I think in part by the person's personality, physical health, past experiences, pure luck, and attitude.

Take for instance this example from my own personal fears -- I am terrified of going down steep ramps and curb cuts. Anything more than a 50 degree incline and I will swivel around and go down it backwards. Why? Because I have tipped over too many times, catapulted face forward, broken too many legs, and wound up in too many long leg casts for summers on end... so every time my stomach starts to lurch forward on an incline, I become paralyzed with an (ir)rational fear and would rather not have to look. It's silly, many would say ridiculous, and trust me my friends tease me about it all the time!
Yet when it comes to roller coasters that turn, spin, dive, hang upside down, and zoom backwards I am all for it. Why? Because I haven't gotten hurt on a roller coaster ...yet! My ability to consider what seems fun and non-harmful is based on some totally illogical scale of measurement.

But it's also because that's how life is for me. For so many of us, right? When we know that the chances of fracturing can happen with a sneeze, a weird way of turning over, or a fall into a water bed -- those everyday potentials for injury look like nothing when we put it on the scale of a roller coaster. (Even roller coasters that I'm not tall enough to ride on... but sneak on anyway...NOT recommended.) That's exactly why I don't measure each life experience on the same scale. No matter how accurately that risk management scale may measure.. it wouldn't be an accurate way of living my life. Because putting them on a scale doesn't factor in: fun, that gut wrenching thrill, the risk-taker in me, and best of all the memories I will take away afterwards.

It was a few years ago that my older brother had brought up the fact that he was making a list of things he wants to do before he dies. I didn't really take him seriously at the time, and I still don't feel the need to make such a list. Every day is something that I want to have on "that bucket list" because I know it's something I'm lucky to get to experience. Jokingly I said,
"I want to dive down a waterfall."
"Sandy you'd break every bone in your body."
"No I wouldn't, it's water. I can swim. Water doesn't hurt me."
"No you'd break every bone in your body going down." 
"....Well... what if I were lowered down the waterfall, like in a bucket down a well?"

Forget living life on the edge, live on possibility without the hindrances of scales and lists!