Throw-Back Thursday: Cool Kids Rollerblade... Even Inside the House (and how I got my black eye)

Sooo... this picture is extremely embarrassing.

But way too awesome to not share.

I believe it was my 6th birthday, and all I wanted was rollerblades. Imagine my excitement when that's exactly what I received!! And of course, complete with the knee pads, wrist guards, helmet, water bottle, backpack... yeah, I'd say that I was pretty well protected.

I might have been a bit too excited, though. I hardly ever took those things off. And when my parents finally told me that I couldn't rollerblade indoors, I still wore some of the pads around the house. I was a dork.

Interestingly enough, I remember that the pads I most often wore were the wrist guards - I remember liking the secure feeling they gave me.

I obviously was already showing signs of EDS even at that age! (Which we now know that yes, I was born with it, since it's a genetic condition.)

My Grandma Edna would let me rollerblade in her kitchen (she's my mum's mum who has always lived in our basement suite), so many of the hours that I already spent with her were filled with gliding (more like shuffling with those plastic wheels) back and forth, back and forth, doing my best not to knock things over.

It was AWESOME.

Also, yes, that's a black eye I'm sporting in the picture. Surprisingly, not from rollerblading, though - it was almost healed there. I might as well tell the story now, since it is Throw-Back Thursday...

When I was in grade 1 (age 5 or 6), I was wandering around the school yard, looking for my buddy (we were all paired up with a grade 5 - and mine was named Sarah, too!). I couldn't find her anywhere, but I did hear some noise coming from the out-of-bounds forrest area near the edge of the property. I was normally a goodie-two-shoes, but I was much too curious to not investigate...

When I went through the trees/shrubs into a little clearing, I saw Sarah. She was with a bunch of the other grade 5s, and they seemed to be playing a game - they were throwing things back and forth. I yelled her name in excitement and started running towards her. I remember her seeing me and looking scared and yelling at me to stop, but I was too excited/hyper to listen. Just as I reached her and gave her a big hug, I heard a boy yell something along the lines of "WATCH OUT," so I automatically turned to look.

BAM. A rock hit me right on the bone on the outside of my right eye. They had been having a freaking rock fight.

It gets a bit fuzzy after this, but I remember screaming and grabbing my eye as I fell backwards. All the grade 5s started freaking out, some of them crying, and one of them (Sarah, I think?) picked me up bride-style and ran out of the woods screaming for a supervisor. Everyone was hysterical as she passed me over to the supervisor who carried me into the school to the office.

Once inside, all the staff were really nice to me, and obviously really concerned. They gave me a big bag of ice to hold on my eye, and periodically asked me to take it off for them to have a look. I could tell by their expressions that it wasn't looking good. It was totally numb from the ice, but it started feeling really weird... really... big. Puffy. Yep, it was swelling. A LOT.

Eventually, it swelled shut, and turned beautiful shades of black and blue. I assured them that I would be okay though, and they sent me to wait in the classroom until lunch was over and the other kids came back in. I remember sitting in the dark classroom, and my classmates starting and waving at me through the window as they started lining up. They wanted to know why I was inside already, so I pointed to my eye. They were far away though, and couldn't properly see it. When my teacher finally came into the classroom, I startled her. I explained what happened, and if I remember correctly, she sent me back to the office once she saw it (it must have gotten worse since they sent me to the classroom).

The rest of my class went to the library and got to watch a movie, so I was really bummed out. I remember watching part of it, but then someone came into the library and asked me to come to the office again. The boy was there, and he looked really upset and sorry. They made him apologize to me, and then let him leave. I don't really remember anything else from here, but I'm assuming that they called my mum and sent me home.

I also remember being told by a doctor that if the rock had hit me directly in my eye (through the eyelid or not) - only maybe a couple centimetres to the left - I would have had serious damage to my eyeball to the point of possibly losing it (judging by the amount of damage it did to my face). YIKES!

So, there you have it! The story of how I got my black eye, as best as I can remember it.

Stay tuned for the story of how I got stitches in my back... also in grade 1...

-Sarah

P.S. - I'm heading to the island until tomorrow night to watch my cousin Nick on set - he snagged the main roll in an upcoming kid's TV series!! I don't think I can say too much more, but GOOO NICK!! Super proud of this kid. And SUPER excited to get to watch for a day!!