I can only say, 'I really messed up.'

#20250127-508

Monday, January 27, 2025
I do yoga every morning and go for slow jogs regularly.
Mu-kun (my husband) and I also met at a road bike cycling event.
It might seem like I love sports, but I am extremely uncoordinated.
It wasn't until long after I became an adult that I started to feel that moving my body was pleasant.

Distal radius fracture of the right arm.
To put it simply, I broke the bone in my right wrist.

Noko (my daughter, 5th grade) said she wanted to try roller skating, so today the three of us went to a roller skating rink in Tokyo.
I had dabbled in roller skating a little bit when I was in elementary school. Back then, it was the four-wheeled type that you strapped onto your shoes.
When I peeked at the roller skating rink's website, I saw that there were various types of rental skates, including the inline skates I had always admired.
I pretended that I was just doing it because Noko begged me, but in reality, I was quite excited myself.

Noko was timid and cautious about roller skating for the first time in her life, but I was able to skate better than I expected, so I got carried away.
That's right.
Since it was my first time on inline skates too, I should have just taken it easy, but I got ahead of myself.

The moment I thought, 'Oh no,' I lost my balance, fell diagonally backward, and put my hand out.
In that instant, I knew that was a bad way to land.
My breath stopped, and the world inverted like a film negative.
Sounds became distant, and I felt sick.
It hurts, it hurts, it hurts.
I couldn't even lift myself up.

I had previously fractured my left wrist in a road bike accident.
At that time, my wrist hung limp and I couldn't lift it, but the pain wasn't that bad.
This time, the pain was completely different from back then.
This wasn't a situation where I could just ice it, go home, and wait to see how it felt.
I had to go to the hospital immediately.

Fortunately, there was a university hospital I frequent nearby.
We took a taxi to the emergency room right there.
Noko kept saying it was her fault because she had begged to go roller skating.
Each time, I replied over and over, 'It's not your fault.' Mommy just got carried away, I told her.
We had promised to have a snack after we finished roller skating.
'Wait a little longer for your snack, okay?'
When I said that, Noko replied, 'I don't want to, but I'll wait.'
She is laughably honest about things like that.

Although we arrived at the emergency room, I wasn't being called in.
It hurt so much that I wanted to sleep to escape reality, but it hurt too much to even sleep.
'It hurts. It hurts so much I can't sleep.'
Mu-kun knitted his brows in distress.
I had Noko make do with snacks from the hospital shop.

As a result of the X-ray, my radius was broken and displaced.
The doctor explained that they would pull it to return it to the correct position and then set it. Apparently, this is called a reduction.
While I was lying down, they applied an ultrasound to my right shoulder to check the position of the nerves and gave me an anesthetic injection.
'There are some people for whom the anesthesia doesn't work very well, but if that happens, let's do our best together,' the doctor said.
'I don't want to do my best,' I blurted out, my true feelings slipping out.

After a while, my entire right arm began to go numb, and I couldn't tell where my arm was.
I felt like my arm was lifted up, but I couldn't see it. When I raised my head to look for it, it was lying limp by my side.
The back area of the emergency room was busy, with emergency patients being brought in one after another.
'The bento boxes have arrived! If you can eat, go ahead and eat, we'll be back in a little bit!'
Voices like that were flying back and forth on the other side of the curtain.
'How are you feeling?'
The doctor poked his head in.
'It's numb, and I can't tell where my arm is.'
'That's good, the anesthesia is working.'
Leaving a smile behind, the curtain closed.

The reduction was done while taking X-rays.
The doctor's hands performing the reduction were also bone. Taking advantage of the fact that I felt no pain, I stared intently at my own bones on the screen. The doctor pulled with all his might.
'If the anesthesia hadn't worked, you would have been screaming,' he said, and I couldn't help but smile bitterly.
A cast was applied under the X-ray.
I put my arm through a thin, tubular stockinette fabric. It seems to be the base bandage for the cast. Over that, they wrapped a bandage-like cotton around my arm, folded back the base bandage from earlier, and then wrapped it with something like a coarse bandage. Apparently, when you wet this with water, the resin hardens and becomes the cast itself.
Although I broke my wrist, it was covered thoroughly from just before my elbow to the base of my fingers.

I broke my bone at 3:00 PM.
I left the hospital at 8:00 PM.
The city had completely turned to night.
'I'm hungry,' said Noko, who had eaten a donut, a sweet bun, and yogurt.
I was told the anesthesia would last until morning, but my entire right arm was aching.
Even so, I had to fill my stomach.
Mu-kun looked up at the signs of the shops lining the street.
'It has to be something Mommy can eat, doesn't it?'