Rollerskates vs.Rollerblades

"You can only be young once. But you can always be immature."
-Dave Barry


My son was invited to a rollerskating party the other night. I was excited to take him, since he has never gone skating before. It went along as most children's parties do; with the adults mulling together and cringing as the children crashed into each other or used the wall as their brakes. I commented "someone is going to go home with a broken bone." Some of us parents who rollerblade extensively thought it would be fun to get out and skate as well. I decided to go "old school" and got the rollerskates instead of rollerblades.

We skated around and the children had races to see who was the fastest. Then the birthday girl wanted to see the parents race. No problem. We lined up, waited for the signaland....go! I want to point out right from the start that several of my competition had rollerblades on, which are much easier to manuever in. However, I was in the lead for 9/10ths of the race.

We came into the last curve, last 5 feet of the race. I don't know what happened, but all of a sudden I was falling, with a one point landing right on my elbow. I sat stunned for a moment as the "referee" shouted out 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. Then the pain set in. Whew, I could barely speak. Needless to say, I sat out for the rest of the night, with ice on my elbow hoping that I would get some sensation back into my arm. The landing seemed to turn off my arm - I couldn't lift it or rotate my hand.

We went home, I went to the emergency room. The admitting clerk at the hospital laughed when I told him what I did to get me the visit to emergency room. He said two of his co-workers did the same thing with equally disasterous results - a broken elbow for one and a cracked kneecap for the other. 3 series of X-rays later and a presciption for pain medicine, I was sent home with the diagnosis of nothing broken, just a deep contusion (yes, I am a little disappointed - that much pain should have guaranteed me a cast).

I've gotten most of the movement and strength back in my arm (it is at 90%). I've got two huge bruises - one on my elbow and the other on my pride!!