From the lushary....

I'm making my first visit to the lushary.

((Drinking a giant virtual black velvet and cherry coke. yum.))

Did you know that pain can be a good thing? Pain usually indicates that something is wrong, somewhere, and that something needs to be done.

My pain tolerance - physical, emotional, mental - is a bit on the high side.

I think the fact that I have survived seven miscarriages and I'm still trying proves it.

Need more proof? Well, settle in, have another drink, and I'll tell you a story.

In 2000, I was living the good life. I was working, dating a musician, about to graduate from college, partying as much as humanly possible. I was an athletic, active girl then, one who hadn't alienated half of her friends and who didn't cry every day. My boyfriend and I took up snowboarding that winter, and we became fanatics. After the yearly ski/snowboard trip we took with my friends,  after just one lesson, we went out and purchased all of our own equipment and planned another trip, just the two of us.

So, the first morning of our trip, we decided to take another lesson. It went well - I seem to have a bit of a natural knack for snowboarding -  and I decided that my nascent skills needed a test.

So I attempted a jump. Note the word "attempt." It did not go well, and I fell hard, but got up and continued to ride all day, despite the pain in my groin.

Fast forward two weeks. I was still in pain, and the thought occured to me that I might have more than a strained muscle. I'd go out for a jog and only manage three miles instead of six or seven.

So, off to the doctor I went. He sent me out for xrays. That night, I was out in a bar with some friends when my (giant! non-web-browsing!) cell phone rang.

It was my mom, telling me to get my ass home immediately. She had just spoken to my doctor, and that strained muscle? well, it was actually a fractured pelvis. As in, sit down, put your feet up and don't get drunk and stumble on your fractured pelvis.

I was a very lucky girl: lucky that all of my snowboarding (and falling on my black and blue butt) after the accident didn't cause the fracture to become a clean break. Lucky that nothing else went wrong in those two in-between weeks that I was jogging and partying and clubbing.

And very very lucky that I didn't go to the hospital when it first happened.

At my consult with an orthopedic doctor, I was informed that had I presented in an ER with that fracture, I probably would have been sent to surgery to be repaired, which would have meant immobilizing my left side and a long and painful recovery, which would have put a crimp in my two-job having, college attending, party all of the time style.

As it was, by the time the rads were taken, the fracture was starting to heal. All I had to do was rest as much as possible for another 8 weeks. No running or other strenuous activities. And I healed up just fine, no issues or complications.

I think I used up all of my medical luck on the wonder-pelvis.