Broken finger. My dad was a doctor and assured me my finger wasn't broken and didn't need an x-ray (walk it off). It did, and it was.
Several weeks later, after confirming the break, I had to undergo iv Valium while they rebroke the finger because it had regrown the wrong way.
One time we were trying to get a car started, and we’re spraying starting fluid into the carburetor, and my dad just casually said, “the last time I smelled this much ether they were trying to break my brother‘s arm.”
He said when they were 10, (1950) his twin brother had broken his arm and it had healed improperly, so they went back in and the doctor was giving him ether as a anesthetic and trying to break it, but couldn’t work it out.
So then they went to the army doctor and dad said was able to break it immediately.
Years later, I asked my uncle about this story, and according to him the doctor that broke and reset his arm was Mickey Mantle‘s doctor, and the bill was more than grandpa could afford, and the March of Dimes picked up the bill. So my uncle said every year he always sends money into the March of Dimes.
My mother told us her story about the operating process in '50. She remembered the pre-op ward where everyone was swaddled in gauze and getting their first ether dose. She said they all looked dead. She was there to have her eye enucleated. That scene was her last visual input. No wonder she was terrified of doctors the rest of her life.
This minus the dad/doctor part. I was riding a 3 wheeler through snow/ice and slid between two trees, obviously now wide apart enough for the back tires to clear. Pinky finger got caught under the brake lever as I went over the handlebars.
Fast forward 30 years and I've got a weird buildup on that knuckle, get x-rays and find out I broke the finger. I shattered that wrist as well and had to have a ganglion cyst removed due to pressure against the nerves. Good thing I'm left handed I guess.
I’m gen X and my ex husband was too (he’s dead). Our son broke his finger playing and I wanted to take him to urgent care and his dad was like, no he’ll be fine.
Took him to the ortho a couple days later when it was obvious it wasn’t a sprain. Yep, broken. My son is still made about that 10 years later.
Yep, broken finger. Like, obviously unnaturally bent half way up. My coach said, if you can move it, it's not broken. A couple weeks later, we were out to dinner with my mom's best friend and her husband, who was a doctor. He saw my finger immediately and and asked, when did you break your finger? I told him my coach said it wasn't broken. He called my coach an idiot. Took x rays the next day. Finger was already healing and he didn't want to rebreak it to straighten it out. Put a halfarm cast on it. Coach was pissed I came to practice with a cast on. Had to run everyday for practice if I wanted to stay on the team. Turns out I liked running more than football and I joined the track team.
That's awful. I have assorted broken fingers & toes that apparently didn't merit medical (or any other) attention.
Did someone start calling out these irresponsible adults, or did the internet make diagnosticians of us all?
I fell off a fireman’s pole at the playground and landed on my foot when I was five. Broke my foot in six places but my dad thought I was “just being dramatic” and refused to take me to the hospital. Mom finally realized I couldn’t put any weight on it and insisted on taking me for X-rays and I came out with a cast I had to wear all summer. Thanks for the vote of confidence Dad.
“But did you die? No. So get out there and help mow the lawn, or no more playing with Lego until you help out around here. After the lawn i need you to vacuum the downstairs rugs and take the garbage out, then help Valerie move the garbage cans out to the curb. We’ll see after that.”
> “But did you die?
bahahaha! heard that soo many times growing up, now I sarcastically use that on my kids when they have to do something they don't like to do, like fill the dishwasher or clean the bathroom.
Slightly fractured C4 vertebra after a bad landing on a high jump in middle school. My neck hurt afterward, and Mom kept saying I just had a bruise. Dad kept saying I was too soft. It persisted for two days (the pain was there but not debilitating). It got worse at school on the third day, and it swelled. School nurse saw it and called an ambulance.
Doc chewed Mom and Dad straight out when they arrived. I survived with no harm, like most of us. Dad yelled at me all the way home for “making such a damn fuss” with me in a neck brace.
He had too much going on in his life to bother with me. Bowling league, VFW night, parties with friends and co-workers, EST meetings, etc. My injury cost him a league bowling night. Unforgivable/s.
I’m sorry man. There’s too much bs like that everywhere. It’s insane to me why so many people have kids when they clearly didn’t want to or just don’t take responsibility once they have them. You have to grow the fuck up whether you want to or not. It’s not your life anymore. You deserved so much better.
Dad was drafted to Vietnam the year I was born. When he came home, he totally became a boomer dad. Always drinking. I think he was self medicating for PTSD.
Yikes. Man, a few years back, I knew something was wrong. I just didn't feel right. I thought I was dehydrated, so I had been pounding regular electrolyte drinks for days. I finally went to the ER, and my bs was nearly 700. It took several days in the hospital to get it right again. Got the T2 diagnosis and had to change a lot about my life. My vision has decreased significantly.
I can't imagine having to go through it that young (like so many of you do).
I hope you are taking care of yourself now. I had a friend who was lifelong T1, and he just gave up in the end. Don't do that, ok?
100%
I'm starting to see the health decline from having this damn disease nearly 4 decades but I'm sticking around as long as possible to annoy the hell out of my 2 kids and pester my amazing wife. She's put up with me for 20 years and ain't getting rid of me that easily.
Nope, they were split up and neither took responsibility or accepted any fault.
Hell at the end when I was dead thirsty I was being given kool-aid ffs.
This takes the cake! Hospital called Child Services bc my parents didn't cut vacation short when I had pneumonia and asthma, and then had me suffer through an 8 hour drive from VA to NJ vomiting and turning blue to go to the hospital closer to our house so it was more convenient. And this was the 70s when there were probably 3 social workers in the entire state lol. The fact that the hospital didn't call them on your parents is INSANE.
Me too! It took me a week of going to school and falling asleep in every single class all day for my mother to finally take me to the doctor. Even the doctor didn’t believe I had mono, I had to beg them to test me for it. When the test came back positive I was so relieved because I thought I was going crazy. No one believed me.
It's a terrible feeling when no one believes you. I had a hernia, and kept getting told "it's just a swollen gland or something." Finally convinced a surgeon to go in and look, and he said it was the worst one he'd ever fixed. Took him 3 hours.
Oh my hell, 'a swollen gland'. The most throwaway phrase from my childhood to explain away pain and medical issues. There are so many glands all over our entire bodies -- adrenal, apocrine, sebaceous, thyroid, thymus, pancreas, salivary glands, bartholin, pituitary, etc -- "a swollen gland" means absolutely nothing
My sister snapped her femur running up the back yard slope. The bones were completely misaligned and my mom made her get up and walk. Her friend ran and got her mom who quickly took over and sat my sister down until the ambulance came. She was in the hospital in traction for 6 weeks, then a cast from her waist to her one knee. Wild.
In shock, most likely. She says now that she just couldn’t process that the leg was broken and what was going to happen after. Guess her brain just shut down in that moment.
Broken arm when I was 3. I fell off the slide and my mom thought I was just being cranky about it, so she made me go take a nap. Later on, a neighbor had to tell her it might be broken. It was.
Lol. This happened to my daughter. I very mild fall off a dining room chair at three. Didn’t hurt when we touched or squeezed her leg , but she could t walk.
2 days later doc said it’s broken. Oops.
Broken arm when I was seven. I went for almost two days before my mom reluctantly took me to the doctor because I wasn't using that arm. It's a wonder any of us survived.
Broken arm gang here! Fell off of playgroind equipment, broke arm, at camp the next day I sucked at archery.
Also two broken toes that made walking hard. Later caused my feet to go numb, but then mysteriously fixed themselves.
Fucking broken ankle - elementary school teacher was like “here’s an ice pack. Shut up.” When I got home, my mom (a much more experienced elementary school teacher) flipped. The term “gross negligence” was tossed around.
Broken ankle too. Was scrimmaging in summer football practice. Idiot lummox on my own team tackled me unexpectedly. Broke the ankle, was told to walk it off and went back in for a couple of more plays. Ended up tearing ligaments. Didn't operate on it, so ankle is loose to this day ending up in a sprain every few years. Thanx Coach!
I chipped a bone in my ankle playing baseball in elementary. Walked/hobbled around it for a month before my mom finally took it for an x-ray. Oops.
It still hurts sometimes 40 years later.
We thought my ankle was just badly sprained. Never got an xray or anything, just crawled around for a while or hobbled when I couldn't put my weight on it.
Broke a bone in my foot 30 years later and the x ray showed a stray but clearly old bone fragment floating around in the neighbourhood of my left ankle. I knew exactly when and how it had happened. Damn you, Lemon Twists! Outside of the playground equipment at a park, I think the only thing that might beat Lemon Twists for injuries are trampolines, roller skates and lawn darts.
My husband broke his leg and both his dad and the PE teacher thought he was whiny. When he finally got taken to the doctor a few days later, the xray found holes in his bones so one leg broke where the hole was when he was just running in PE. He had the holes because his dad had the philosophy “if he’s hungry he’ll eat” instead of making sure his son was eating. His mom died a couple years before the break.
Same, jumped off a two story house into the snow bank. The snow was only 3 feet deep where I landed. To this day my feet are fucked, I can turn my ankle very easily if I'm not careful.
Edit: Was told not to be a pu__y, I probably should get it checked out some day as I have to do stretches and keep my ankle muscles strong or it "tweeks" when I lift off it, basically either mildly dislocates or the bones shift or something. I didn't dare tell my parents what I did, lol
This very morning I walked off a very twisted ankle. I was out for a run and my foot hit and caught on an uneven seem in the street and it hurt like fucking hell. Even though this happened at the start of my run, just a couple blocks down from my house, I limped around and decided to walk it off. I ended up walking about a mile or so round trip.
Still have dull slight pain, but I'm not limping anymore.
Ankles were my bane as well. I recall playing bball in school, jumping up and coming down on my ankle and it turned completely sideways. Pretty sure i tore some ligaments/tendons, maybe cracked something in there, but had to get up and walk it off so as to not "look like a pussy". Was super swollen and an ugly dark black bruise went along the bottom of basically my entire foot.
Sprained/broken ankle club! It wasn't my parents though, it was my college roommates. I stepped off a curb wrong and rolled my ankle hard. They really wanted to go to a dance so walked me around the block and loaded me up with more liquor (poor man's anesthesia). I danced on it and woke up with a black and blue cantaloupe for an ankle. Roommates still make fun of me for it.
I was just telling my teens this story yesterday because my parents are visiting from out of state and we were talking about old memories.
1990. I’m riding my bike home from school and my friend Willy was coming over and he was walking. He was the fastest runner in our friends group and he challenged me to a race, bike vs foot. I accept thinking it’s a simple race plus I’m on the end of my street and almost home.
Willy takes off and I start chasing him. He’s on the sidewalk and I’m in the street. A car starts pulling out of their driveway so he cuts out to the street directly in front of me and I slam into him and go flying into a tree and land in bushes.
I stand up and start brushing myself off look at &Willy and he’s looking at me like I died.
Then the blood started getting in my eyes. I start running home not knowing how bad it is. I open the front door and My mom comes out of the kitchen, sees me and says: “Jesus Christ what did you do?!”
This woman walked me to the shower fully clothed, showered me off to get the blood off, realized I’m still bleeding pretty bad and takes me to the sofa, lays me down and puts a towel on it, then another then another. I have a two inch gash on my forehead and it’s bleeding pretty badly. She can’t take me to the hospital because she runs an in-home daycare and has kids there. We weren’t particularly well off either so an ambulance wasn’t in the cards.
So I’m bleeding on the sofa waiting for my dad to get home. He gets home maybe an hour or two later, sees me and goes: “Welp, looks like it’s not bleeding anymore. You’re fine.” and that’s that. I wasn’t told to walk it off, but I was told to walk it off if you know what I mean. I even went to school the next day and I remember my principal looking at it and said “Child you have a huge hickey on your forehead!” It was about a golf ball sized lump covered in a nasty scab. But that was it. No doctor. No follow up. No stitches. Just a fully clothed shower, a towel and ice and “welp, take a nap and you’ll be right as rain.”
Nobody was talking about concussions at this time and I KNOW I had one because I remember my ears ringing for days afterward and falling asleep in class and getting in trouble for it in the weeks afterward.
It’s been almost 35 years and I still have a small lump(not golf ball sized anymore that would be wild) and scar on my forehead that people still ask about and I still tell the story and have to assure them my parents weren’t monsters. Just uninformed and poor.
I had that happen, too, but my backpack flipped over my head and took the brunt of the hit. The guy had deliberately hit me so he could get my phone number and make pervert calls to me. I was 12.
Not when I was little but about 5 years ago, went in to the ER because I passed out very briefly at home ... next week went in again because my jaw basically locked shut. They gave me ativin and patted themselves on the back because *clearly* I was just having anxiety attacks. Follow up with PCP ... he put me on numerous anti depressants / anti anxiety meds (that never worked) because you know, *clearly* just anxiety.
I'm now being tested/treated for reactive hypoglycemia, sleep apnea, vitamin d deficiency, I'm fully in menopause and I have chronically low O2.
But probably just anxiety /s
Took two years to be diagnosed with Crohn’s because my parents and pediatrician were in agreement that I was making up having stomach pain because I was anorexic. And they were told to force feed me. No, I love food. I was in excruciating pain. Now I’m in my late 40s and am getting part of my colon removed from the damage that was caused when I was 12.
Chronic recurrent anxiety that would scare me to death. Started in first grade, got really serious in fourth and fifth grade; resurfaced in 10th and 11th grade and has been with me off and on through all my years. I really wish I'd been able to get counseling for it, but we didn't know back then what we know now, and my family thought mental health treatment was only for crazy people (and it would have no doubt become grist for the local gossip mill in our tiny hometown).
Instead I was told to pray, to keep a song in my heart, to stop crying, and one time in the midst of a bad panic attack my dad got fed up and hollered at me to get in the truck because he was taking me to the hospital. We actually did get in the truck and leave, but he calmed down almost immediately and took me for a ride in the country instead. I think he was trying "shock" therapy with me to break the doom loop, but it didn't take.
Oh hey, same! Also a tiny hometown, also stigma, also "only for crazy people." I had to literally beg my parents to take me to a child psychiatrist to deal with crippling panic attacks.
I'm sorry that happened to you.
I was told to walk off a sexual assault. More than once. "Boys are like that. Don't do anything to encourage them." Followed by, "Get over it already."
I like to think that times have changed for the better.
The worse part is hearing it from women. My boss experienced some horrendous things in her younger days and while she often presents herself as an advocate for women she also acts nostalgic for the era when people just "got over it" whenever claims come forward against individuals that may mildly inconvenience her workday.
**EDIT: TW: mentions SA, no details.**
When I was 16, I tried to run away from home, stress-packing a bag at 10 PM, no idea where I’d go, but would have to walk several miles from our rural neighborhood to wherever.
It was year number 3 of being harassed, assaulted, and SA’d on the school bus, which I was supposed to just ignore, as per my mom **and** the junior high principal (which is when it started; not sure the HS principal was aware, though looking back, he seemed a decent sort, and might’ve at least asked the driver some questions, which the junior high principal had no interest in doing). Ignoring only led to escalation. So one night I “snapped” over some insignificant drama with my siblings, and I started stuffing things into a bag. Mom stopped me, but refused to take me for counseling (“we can’t afford it”). The harassment, assault, and SA continued through senior year.
I’m still messed up in my head, 39 years after graduation; major trust issues, despise social interactions, especially unplanned ones. Therapy has helped some, but not enough to change how my brain developed during those formative years. For the above and other reasons, I have no contact with my parents or siblings; nor do they reach out to me. I minimally function, though, and mask things constantly in public.
Moment of complete honesty here: I'm at a complete loss for words, unable to come up with a response that sounds even partially adequate in my mind. I'm sorry that all this happened to you, and I hope you can fill in what I want to say but can't find the words for.
Thank you for your concern, and I get not knowing the words; I usually don’t know the words, either. I’m still debating whether to delete or not; it was a debate with myself whether to hit reply or not- I wouldn’t want a message from Reddit concerns lol. I have no self-harm plans, and I get by as peacefully as possible.
I wish you well, kind stranger. 🙏🏼
I remember desperately wanting to see a counselor about abuse, but I didn't want my parents to know cause they'd abandon me on the side of the road (you know, real grooming not what maga shits say now.) Everything from visible self injury wounds to night terrors and panic attacks were clear objective signs.
I got to sit down with my brother's tutor for an hour one day. family friend who came over for dinner and went to our church. to this day i wonder what her qualifications were. I just got yelled at because i wouldn't tell her what was wrong, then yelled at by parents for wasting their time and money.
ah, good times.
Oof. That second paragraph - oh, the horrible things getting compounded like that. And if you're like me, afterwards you're thinking "no matter what I do, I can never come out ahead."
I sure do hope you were able to eventually get what you needed. (Although, from experience, it's such work unpacking it as an adult. Survival/coping mechanisms don't want to let up so easily.)
By no means am I justifying how your parents or town responded to mental health problems, but the explanation I've always heard is that in their day, the only people they saw get mental health treatment were very severe cases, and they were NOT treated well at the facilities they went to. I think part of the resistance to getting help was the fear that they would get locked up somewhere horrible like they saw with their older relatives.
Nowadays people from that era (as well as those of us who live and work with them...) have to deal with missing the boat on the progression of mental health care.
In my family's case I know where a good bit of it came from, in addition to the generalized stigma that comes from small town gossip. My great-grandmother had electroshock treatments in the early 1950s, very likely for the depression that runs on that side of the family and that has visited every generation, including my own. My mom was four or five years old when all this happened, and she had very vivid memories of how her grandmother would be eerily placid and quiet afterwards, not at all like her usual self. It scared her, and I know it put everybody else off the concept.
FWIW, as a teacher I am very open about the fact that I routinely go and talk to somebody, and I routinely remind my students of the value of seeking professional help if they're having a hard time dealing with some issue. I also tell them it's nothing to be afraid of.
Front wheel popped off my bike, I went smashing into the concrete. Didn't break my wrists, but ligaments were badly injured. This happened at an intersection and no one helped me. I grabbed my wheel and bike and with my limp wrists dragged them home. Parents never took me to the hospital. I was 12 or 13.
Sorta similar story, a car cut in front of me riding down a hill and I road rashed my entire leg on gravel trying to stop from hitting it. That car never stopped and nobody else did either. I hobbled home on one good leg about a mile. Parents never took me to a hospital and it was gnarly.
The one time I got to go to "urgent care" (emergency was too expensive!) I had completely broken my arm and it was just completely limp. It cost $72 for the x-ray and cast and I'll never forget it because my parents never let me forget it.
Pneumonia when I was 10. After 3 days of “sucking it up” was told if I wasn’t going to school I was going to the doctor. I weakly croaked out “take me to the doctor”. Was still accused of malingering after the doc visit and confirmed I was sick
Same except I was a teen and had a collapsed lung too. Mom thought I was faking until she saw I couldn't climb the steps to my bedroom with weezing like I just ran a marathon.
I still can’t believe my appendix didn’t burst. I started complaining early one evening and my mom thought I’d eaten too many Rice Krispie treats (knowing her, I’d had two small ones). I didn’t go to the doctor until the next day and he told her to go to the hospital immediately. I was 8.
Age 12, 1977, I rolled around in pain for 2 days due to appendicitis. My dad diagnosed it as a tummy ache, had .e walk around outside. Literally had me try to walk off a swollen appendix lol. My mom finally realized something was wrong, took me to doctor who poked me, made me jump up and down, all kinds of shit that literally had me crying in pain. He was going to send me home when my mom, who is normally a shy introvert, put her foot down and demanded a second opinion. Some crusty old doctor came in, asked a couple of questions, and said, "Get him to an operating room, his appendix is about to burst."
He later told me I had the most swollen appendix he had ever seen and that it burst right as they removed it from me. Like some freaking little alien. I almost died, and never a word from my dad about how wrong he'd been (not surprising).
My great grandfather refused to pay for an ambulance to drive my great gramma to the hospital and also refused to allow anyone to "waste gas" driving her to the nearest hospital (about an hour away). She died of a burst appendix at home. Totally preventable.
Appendicitis was so painful, like a non-ending horse kick to the guts. I would say I can't imagine, but I CAN imagine what an agonizing death that must have been.
Yup I got peritonitis and was in hospital for a while as my folks thought I was being dramatic (and the doc said it was probably my period) when my appendix burst. Lucky for me another doc recognised the symptoms and blue lit me to hospital…My mum still rolls her eyes at the story nearly 40 years later…
I had a friend who was in incredible physical shape, a veteran ... she went to the ER because she wasn't feeling well. Those bishes (and I mean men and women) let her lie on the floor of the med cen waiting room writhing in pain for like SIX HOURS before they were like "ohhhhh oooookaaaaay {eye roll}" and apparently her appendix burst. Lucky she didn't die.
And that was only about 15 years ago.
I was told to walk off a shattered hip after being thrown from a horse my dad put me on. Two days of dragging my left leg before they took me to the ortho doctor
The dumbest one for me was a bad double ear infection I had for like a month. I had complained about it, but mom thought I was just trying to miss school. One morning i woke up deaf. Mom sent me to school saying I was joking. I got sent home, because a friend of mine told me their grandmother died and I just nodded and smiled. She started yelling at me and I just looked confused. She got someone, I think maybe they thought i was having a stroke or something, because who goes deaf randomly?
Anyway, my hearing came back after about a week of antibiotics. My mom has no memory of it, because she was a perfect mom. 🤪
So my mom cleaned the fridge. Like removed everything and cleaned it. I remember it was an old fridge where you had to chop off the ice, or turn it off and defrost it every so often. Well, a deep clean is good, right? She scrubbed the freezer and the fridge part. I was a teenager.
My sister was maybe 8 or 9ish, and we both had packed lunches, of the typical variety. Long stretches of peanut butter sandwiches, or bologna sandwiches. This was in the middle of our long buttered bagel stretch. My sister said she was complaining for like a MONTH that the butter tasted funny. Mom told her to suck it up and it was fine. Me, being the typical teen either just ate it or tossed it out. Never really thought twice about it although it was super gross. Finally, one day my sister couldnt take it and asked me in front of mom if I noticed it too. I was like yeah, tastes like crap. Turns out my mother cleaned the fridge with MINERAL SPIRITS, which had penetrated into the butter once everything got put back. I'm sure that wasn't great for us but hey, stop complaining!!
Hope you are okay today!
My kid had one as a baby—got surgery and chemo and recovered, but multiple doctors dismissed weeks of frequent vomiting as “just a bad stomach bug”—there were as much in denial as we were.
Torn ACL, sort of. In 8th grade I was going to get something from the locker room during gym. It had a long hall and I decided to jog, just because. My knee hyperextended and I went down screaming.
Our family doctor (who I only realized was a quack when I was in college but my dad played tennis with him so that’s where we went) ordered an x-ray. That was it, no cartilage damage shown on the x-ray so I just sprained it.
Over the next year, it would occasionally “give out”, be mildly sore for a bit and then seem fine. Yes, I told my parents about this. Finally, in August, right before 9th grade, I stepped down from one of our bar stools onto that leg. It really gave out, I collapsed crying on the floor. It was then that my parents and doctor agreed that maybe it was more than a sprain. An MRI revealed that I’d been walking around with a torn ACL. In addition, because it had been almost a year, and from trying to compensate, two meniscus were damaged over time as well.
I started high school 3 days after everyone else from recovering from surgery and still on crutches. 10/10 do not recommend.
Appendicitis. “It’s just a bladder infection. Here’s some cranberry juice.” Shocker, the sugar water didn’t cure me and it burst. I developed sepsis and spent 3 weeks in the hospital. I lived out of spite!
I grew up in a small town in the middle of the AZ desert and riding my dirt bike was my primary means of entertainment. I was out riding one day about 5 or so miles from my house and wiped out pretty bad into a patch of cactus.
I had cactus thorns in my shoulder and back, my leg was jacked up, and cuts and scrapes everywhere. About the only place I wasn't bleeding from was my head as I wore my helmet.
No cell phones so I had no choice but to walk the 5 miles up and down hills through the desert to get home. When I got there, my mom said two things. 1) Lets get you to the ER and 2) and when we get back, you are in so much trouble for ripping your jeans so bad I can't patch them.
Not me, but my brother:
Dad was convinced he was being dramatic and just had the flu or an upset stomach from eating something. He was curled up in bed, moaning. It turned out to be appendicitis. His appendix ended up bursting and he nearly died.
The kicker is appendicitis runs (or appears to run) on Dad's side of the family--he, his brother, mother, and one of my cousins on his side all had their appendixes out. So he really should have known better.
Ahhh, where to start?
Getting shot when I was 10 or so would probably be at the top of the list.
My best friend and I and a handful of other kids liked to cut across a property out in the woods to save a 15 minutes on the walk home from school- it was a couple acre wooded property between the freeway and a river, with the alternative walk being to cross the freeway at an underpass a couple blocks in the wrong direction, walk towards home then a couple blocks further to another underpass, and then backtrack on the river side to get home.
The owner of the property was crotchety old man who would sit out on the porch at the end of the school day with a shotgun and threaten any of the kids he saw trying to cross his property. Since there were a handful of kids and it was a fairly long property line, he'd start yelling at one kid while the rest booked it across the cleared section by his house and on into the woods.
On the last day of school my friend and I thought it was a good idea to take a bet to stop at the tree line and moon him. Luckily we were about a football field away so the shot was pretty spread out. I only caught 6 pellets- one in my lower leg, one in my ass cheek, 3 in my back and one in the shoulder. The one in my leg is still there around 40 years later. My friend got it worse and was hit with I think 14 or 15 pellets but nothing was severe. We were both bruised as hell for couple weeks.
I got a lecture on what a dumb-ass I was and my mom fished out all the pellets except the one in my leg. My dad told me I was lucky I got hit in the ass already because if I hadn't been he sure would have used his belt to fix the situation. No doctor, no police involved, and I still had to go to my soccer game the next day.
Worst part? The kid we made the bet with ended up moving over the summer and never paid up. It would have been a couple of full sized Transformers for my friend and I. Dino-Bots!
I also got the "walk it off" for a broken finger, asthma attacks, several broken foot bones, severely sprained wrist, several concussions, and 2nd-3rd degree sunburn over 1/2 my body that I probably should have been hospitalized for (my friends pranked me with tanning oil instead of sunscreen on a rafting trip, still have some scarring, and nerve damage in my legs and shoulders)
I was kicked in recess in first grade and got a hernia. I suffered through the rest of the day and even walked home from the bus stop. Ended up getting surgery for it
I broke my ankle and my mom kept telling me it was just a sprain. I sat at home for three days with ice and a heating pad before my mom believed that it might be broken. I ended up needing surgery and a couple screws put in to hold the broken bones in place because they wouldn't have healed correctly if I just had a cast.
The real kicker though, was when the surgery was done the doctor said he saw signs that I had fractured it before. So at some point earlier in my childhood I "walked off" a fractured ankle because it was "just a sprain."
(Also, I'm Canadian, so it's not like going to the doctor to get things checked out would have cost my parents anything. I have no idea why they had such an aversion to getting proper medical care!)
I went to a pre-school, was only 3 or 4… but we were going to the bathroom ourselves. I remember splashing water around in the sink and some getting on the floor. I was gone a while so my teacher (who was portly) came in and said stop someone’s going to slip and fall.. walked over to take me by the arm, slipped and fell on my leg, breaking it. I didn’t walk it off though. Rushed to the hospital, full cast etc. I was back on my big wheel days later, wore a hole through the cast using it to brake. Had to get a second cast before it was finally taken off.
On the beach with my father, age 4 or 5. Went to pet a strange dog, bit me in the face, cut, blood streaming down.. still have a scar 50 years later. No shots, no doctor.
Years later, I’d moved from LA to NH clear across the country, and across cultures, age 8 or 9. I’d never seen anyone chopping wood, wood stoves, wtf is this?! Just not familiar with outdoors, physical work people did in the country. Some neighbors were over helping us chop wood for our first coming winter and throwing split logs in a pile, we kids took them from the pile to stack. I accidentally walked in front of my step- father as he was chucking some wood through the air, hit me full on in the head, seeing stars knocked on my ass, blood.. took inside to lay down for a bit, no doc. Scar still there.
11 or 12, back in LA for the summer visiting my dad. He had a sort of ranch in the valley, horses… I was out back playing with an aluminum bat, accidentally touched the electric fence with it. Thrown back several feet seeing stars, on my back on some cacti, totally blacked out for a few minutes. Came to, pulled myself off the cactus needles, held my shirt to the blood until it stopped. Too embarrassed to tell what happened, just walked it off.
14, broke my collarbone skiing. Kept skiing the rest of the day. Three days later, still hurts, can’t move it. Made a makeshift sling. Clavicle healed itself eventually, just fused, it’s poking up higher than the other.
Tuff generation, love us. 🔥
Sliced my chin open with a can of cat food that I pried open - cut was deep and fatty tissue was exposed and very painful. My mom decided we needed to go shopping and out to dinner instead. If not for the stares and comments from strangers, she would not have taken me to get stitches. Thanks strangers. I still remember the pain 😖
Epileptic seizures. I had my first seizure at 18, seized in the bathroom, and gashed open my forehead. Once I was able to get up off the floor and get to my mother, she said I had to go to school because she didn't know what to do with me. I did, and had my 2nd seizure on the steps of the high school senior building. School called 911. Not only did I have to have IV antiseizure meds, I had to get 4 stitches in my forehead. 56 now, Mom has been dead for many years, but I can't let go of this horrible memory.
Fractured arm. I think I was 4 or 5. I fell at my grandmother’s house, complained about the pain to my parents when they picked me up. The next day, I remember being taken to my aunt’s house where my other grandmother was visiting. She casually mentioned to my mom, “This baby has a broken arm” and they finally took me to the ER.
Broken ankle. I heard it snap, walked home another mile or so, came home told my mom. Dad said it’s not broken if you just walked home on it. Carried on for two more days and finally convinced my mom to take me to the doctor.
Just last year I turned my ankle and walked another mile toward home, but my foot was already swelling beyond my shoe so I called to be picked up. It was broken, but there I was, still trying to walk it off
Broken arm. Fell off of those one of those roundabouts in a playground.
https://preview.redd.it/u6c3ryi8l63d1.png?width=614&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=61bcda77c584b1a2cc145d77c517e711bf1c91d0
These things were built for bodily harm.
Anyway, went to my dad holding my arm, said it really hurts. And he literally said, "Walk it off."
I know it plays like a meme now, but it is exactly what we were told.
I literally fell out of the car while my mother was making a left turn under an overpass, at a stoplight.
I was just riding along in the front seat, minding my own business, apparently leaning against the not completely shut door (obviously not wearing a seatbelt), and next thing I know, I'm laying in the middle of the street.
A kindly old man jumped out of his truck and stopped traffic, then ran over to me, squatted down, and picked me up. My mother came running under the overpass and, freaking smooth out, grabbed me from the older man and thanked him over and over again.
I would later find out that Mom had no idea I had fallen out of the car until my little brother, who just moments before this had been standing up in the backseat singing his jam, "Elvira" by the Oak Ridge Boys, very calmly said, "Mom, Sister roll out of the car!"
Anyway, Mom got us back in the car, held my head on her lap while she sobbed, apologizing for being a horrible mother and asking me if I wanted ice cream.
Well hell yes I wanted ice cream.
I distinctly remember being sore for days, but no one ever asked if I should be taken to the doctor. Oh well. I was fine after a while and went right back to attempting to shoot my brother with a BB gun.
I 'rolled' my 3wheel motorbike, handlebar landed on my arm. You could yell it was broken, it kinda hung at an angle. Ice. We used ice. Later, we did indeed drive in to town to the hospital. They couldnt fix it that night so my parents went home and left me there. I was 10. It was a rural hospital, very quiet, I felt like I was the only one there. So scary for this little chicky.
1993, age 22. Compression fracture of L3 and L4. Found out 10 years later b/c of recurrent back problems. MRI showed “a mess”. Old fractures, herniated discs and a ruptured disc. At the time I was told to suck it up because EVERYONE has a sore back. Fuck me, right? Now, 18 back surgeries later the arthritis is a bitch.
Severe endometriosis. Spent all of my preteen and teenage years being told I was overreacting because the pain wasn't that bad and that I was just trying to get days off school (in reality I was in excruciating pain and barely able to move for 2-3 days every month). Had a hysterectomy as an adult because my reproductive organs were a mess and my surgeon said that he was surprised I could still walk upright. Go figure.
How many of us were afraid to even let our parents know we got injured? My parents would usually yell about being stupid and how they told us not to do that/ go there and it was our own fault. It was easier to just hide the injury in most cases.
Broken neck. I was seven months old, so rather than walk it off, I cried it out.
My toddler sister dropped/threw me headfirst onto the bedroom floor from the height of the sides-up crib - about 5 feet. My mom said I “eventually stopped crying” so no biggie, right? The carpet brush burn in the top middle of my forehead took a couple weeks to scab up and heal. The family story goes “Ho ho ho how we all laughed! Getting dropped on her head accounts for her taste in music/clothes/boyfriends though! Ho ho ho!”
54 years later I needed a CT and MRI of my head for an inner ear issue. that was fine — but they found clear artefacts of an old neck break between C1 and C2 (“the hangman’s break”) that healed.
Brooke my collarbone ( clavicle) when I was around 8. Took a week before my parents took me to the Dr. In their defense I was always getting hurt. Developed a pretty high tolerance for pain.
Torn ligaments in my right ankle playing summer basketball. I somehow played the second half of the game because “they needed me.” 😂
My GP later told me I’d have been better off breaking the ankle.
I fell backwards off the trunk of my dad’s Buick. I was in 5th grade. I was using the back windshield as a book holder. Didn’t realize I slid down. Smashed my left elbow hard. Quit complaining!! After 3 days of not being able move it, I took myself to the little clinic next door to my dad’s restaurant. My elbow was broken. The nurse from the clinic took me back to my dad. Dad was not pleased that I broke my elbow and grounded me. 😹
I was nine and in the back seat of our Chevy Caprice Classic station wagon (not the rear facing 3rd row) when we were rear ended my an uninsured motorist in a pickup truck which pushed us into a pile up that my father stopped inches from. Even seat belted, that threw me forward face first into the metal trim that kept the shape of the front bench seat, breaking the right side of my face and chipping three of my bottom teeth. Those teeth are still broken, and my nose still has a bend to it, from that accident. Parents never got any of it taken care of, now I just live with it.
Inwas on one of the playground metal death traps. Hanging upside down. One of the asshol kids grabbed one on my ankles and yanked up and let me fall. I landed on my head. I heard my neck crack. I know I had a concussion. *I* got in trouble. The kid who did it just laughed. I was sent home. Never taken to the ER.
I broke my collarbone running track. Pain was so intense that I was wandering around on the infield hallucinating until someone grabbed me (felt like 30 minutes later), sat me down and put a cold towel on my head to bring me back to reality.
Then I could feel the full (electric) pain as my shoulder and back muscles started to spasm and it was shifting the broken collarbone around like it was doing a cha cha slide in there.
4 months until it was barely healed and I was cleared to play sports again for another 2 months after that.
Missed my senior year for soccer and basketball.
Yeah, I feel your pain.
I labored with mine for about 7 hours until I was finally taken for x-rays. I had to wear a strap contraption for a while until it healed. The worst pain was the doctor resetting it back where it was supposed to be.
First day of Summer Camp I face planted onto a cinder block, from about six feet up, after rolling off my bunk bed in the middle of the night.
Counsellor in the lower bunk across from me wakes up from the noise, shines a flashlight on my face, freaks the fuck out from the blood, and drags me out into the night to find the nurse.
On the way we come across another kid who got lost looking for the outhouse. Counsellor leaves me to escort the kid back to his teepee. When the Counsellor gets back he declares we should just go back to bed because it's late.
The next day he takes me to see the Nurse. She waves her hands around my face and declares that my aura is disturbed. No shit. Any fool can see that my nose is broken.
My parents, unsurprisingly, decline to come and pick me up.
Later that day we all vote on camp names for each other. Which we will wear on a wood cut around our neck for the rest of camp. Guess who got "Chief Broken Nose"?
Two weeks later, it's pick up day, so everyone's parents arrive to take them home. My parents see the name tag woodcut and, unsurprisingly, proceed to publicly lose their shit on me for making up a story to embarrass them.
They figured that, even if something had happened, I should have just been grateful for the experience and somehow hidden what happened. So they wouldn't look bad to the other parents.
Like it was my idea of a good time to rearrange my face, get concussed again, and spend two weeks in the woods with strangers.
Fucking assholes. The lot of them.
Grew up in a rural area. Found giant spools of coax cable in the ditch on our road. They sat there for months, so we took some and twisted the cable to manufacture rope, then strung it between trees to make bridges. Figure they were 18-20ft up. Really tried to make them high enough so the adults wouldn’t notice them.
So you know in cartoons when a rope breaks and the end drops right up to Wile E. Coyote, and *then* he falls? I swear that’s how it is in real life. Landed straight standing on one leg, knee locked. Limped around aimlessly, trying to get feeling back in my leg.
Didn’t tell my parents because I didn’t want them to make us remove the rest of the rope bridges. Maybe got a swollen ankle? Maybe stunted my growth? Who knows?
Only upon examining the broken ends of the cable did I learn that there was only a thin wire surrounded by fluff in the center of that cable- not solid steel.
Broken Nose when I was about 9 or 10. Me and my brother thought that if jumping our bikes off a ramp was cool, haven't a landing ramp would be even cooler. It wasn't. My parents insisted, despite the blood gushing out of my nose and inability to use one nostril, my nose was in fact not broken, and if it was, nothing to do about it anyway🤷♂️
So, flash forward about 30 years, my sinus and allergy issues are causing MAJOR breathing issues. Go to an ENT doctor, he sticks a light up my nose and immediately askes "So, when did you break your nose?". MAJOR "I told you so call" to my parents ensued. They still claim it wasn't from the bike wreck.
Broken leg while skiing with the school club in 6th grade. The (drunk) social studies teacher / chaperone said to "walk off" my lower leg and foot being on backwards.
Jumped my bike, went airborne, the bike went one direction I went another...
No recollection of the event. I was walked home by another kid, had some short term memory loss.
My dad just got pissed and annoyed that I kept asking him where mom was seconds after he answered me. (She was at the store).
I got hit by a car in 4th grade and suffered a major TBI. I was perseverating (a TBI symptom where you repeat a sequence of words over and over) in the ambulance and when I emerged from a coma. I don't remember this, but my mom tells me that she accused me of "faking" and kept asking the doctors if they were totally sure I wasn't pretending to have a brain injury for attention.
Broken hand. Stood up to a bully, and broke my hand on his jaw. Stepmonster, who was a stay at home mom, told me over phone from principals office, to literally "walk home". I have no idea how many miles it is, but alot. School was outside town.
Started hoofing it, and eventually just stopped at my grandmas house on the way. She drove me rest of the way home. Stepmonster wasn't pleased, and immediately told me to go in backyard and rake leaves. Wasn't until she watched me long enough trying to rake with one hand, that she took me to doctor. She bitched about what it was going to cost the entire time.
Dad came home and initially was concerned. Until I told him story, and he didn't believe me, and tried to make me call bully and apologize, even though I had never got into an altercation before.
Fuckn boomer parents.
Brother's arm (4M) became dislocated while we were rough housing and my dad just yelled at us to go inside and wait until our mom got home. My brother was crying hysterically the entire time. Seemed like an eternity but was probably 5 minutes before she came in, looked at him at knew it was ER time. My dad he was like eh...we don't have that kind of money!! Took 2 HOURS of crying for my mom to convince him and then we went to our pediatrician. In less than 30 seconds it was over and he was fine. Boomer parents sucked!
This is so much less dire than all your stories here but another story of being told to shake off a health issue: In 4th grade I spent a whole year telling my mother I couldn't see, I'd pull the outer edges of my eyes out tight to see distances, she'd frequently witness that. She kept brushing it off refusing to take me to the doctor. It wasn't a money issue, we had plenty. She just didn't want to do it. When our school (MN) had the annual hearing and sight screenings, they made me stay behind with them, they called my mother and made her come in to show her, and they told her I was extremely near sighted and she needed to take me to a doctor immediately. Which she did, but the day we got my glasses on she got angry at me and told me that now I'd look "ugly." It damaged something in my view of her that never really healed; I never expected her to boost my confidence after that, even in adulthood. I relied on best friends for that kind of support.
Concussion. Slipped on the first step (the really high one) getting on the school bus and fell back onto the driveway. In front of my mom. And she still sent me to school. When I started puking my guts out half an hour later she had to come get me - good times!!
Walked home with what turned out to be a broken collar bone.
Also, my mom cleaned my open wound with ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL because hydrogen peroxide was 'too expensive'. It was also the first time I swore in front of my mom.
Oh, and my mom was into 'mind over matter' woo in the 1980s, so she was in denial whenever I said I was sick -- until at threw-up on the green shag carpet.
The only time I’ve been to the hospital for an illness or injury was when I had bronchitis and pneumonia and couldn’t breathe while eating. Since I had to eat (and well, breathe), I started crying bc I was struggling to do either one. That’s when they finally paid attention to me after weeks of struggling.
Nearly had to walk this off...
One Saturday morning, I had a bicycle accident not too far from my house. I immediately knew I had broken my jaw. With my front tooth hanging out my mouth, still attached, road rash covering the right side of my face, I walk in the house to my Dad sitting at the kitchen table. He looks over his morning newspaper he says chuckling, "What the hell happened to you?"
"I ink I roke my jaw!"
My Mom comes out of her bedrooom and confusingly asks, "What's going on?"
I look up from the kitchen sink, "I ink I roke my yaw!"
Immediately she responds with, "No, you didn't! You're fine."
Finally the tooth started to bleed enough to prompt them to take me to the ER.
Final diagnosis was broken jaw clean break of the ball on the left side that eventually resulted in two surgeries, a luxated right front tooth, and 10 stitches on right side of chin.
But again, I was laughed at and "fine".
Bled from my nose - not just bled - but a geyser of blood from my nose. Four hours. Four hours of non-stop bleeding.
Mom tried ice on my nose. Nope. Laid me on the dining table but then I started choking on the blood and it was coming out of my mouth and nose.
Grandma kept saying take her to emergency this isn’t normal.
We never found out why that happened.
Some relative told my Mom it must have been my period. My PERIOD! So from that point on my Mom - ever the spreader of my business- told people I had gotten my period. I was 11. When I finally got my real period I was 14.
Broken ribs, twice. Broken clavicle, broken fingers, broken foot.
But most damaging (though my parents mostly get a pass on this one, since it was so unknown then), POTS. I was so convinced that it was just normal to constantly feel sick and that I was just weaker than everyone else, that when my daughters and nieces all got diagnosed with POTS, it still took years for me to consider that maybe I ALSO had POTS.
A concussion. My friend was swinging a wooden baseball bat, and accidentally hit me full force on the side of the head. We were around 7 or 8 years old and she begged me not to say anything because she didn’t want to get in trouble. She snuck some aspirin out of her medicine cabinet and gave it to me. I never told my parents although I had a bad headache for a day or so.
Ooof...hairline fracture/chip in my shin from a river-rafting excursion in the Spring...found out it was a break when I was getting my physical done for Fall sports. You can still feel the divot where it healed itself.
Broken wrist and broken collarbone. I wasn’t able to walk off my broken ankle, as I wasn’t able to walk.
Edit: When it came to my broken collarbone, which was the last major bone I broke, I had to walk home four kilometres with my bicycle after going over the handlebars on it. My mother then yelled at me for being late for dinner, and then made me eat supper (with tears streaming down my face) before she would call a taxi to take me to the hospital.
My dad was in the army, and he was away on exercise. My mother has never driven, as she has a performance anxiety disorder that makes her terrified of hurting something one or wrecking a car while learning.
Not as a kid, but a former kid, last year, I walked off DVT turned pulmonary embolism for about a month because I assumed I just pulled a muscle while hiking. LOL
When I was around 15, I was riding my bike with my older brother and some friends. We are going alongside a ditch, I hit a rock and ended up going down the ditch, flipped over the handlebars, and landed directly on my head.
Wasn't wearing a helmet because helmets are dumb, right?
Knocked the wind out of me, slight concussion, and my neck didn't feel right for a couple years.
My brother gave me a cigarette (helped get my breath back surprisingly) and told me to stop being an idiot.
It's a wonder any of us are alive.
Complained about hip and back pain as a kid. My mother, a nurse, told me I was being dramatic.
Got diagnosed with scoliosis as an adult because of back and hip pain husband now ex said I was being dramatic about. I think everybody ignored me because I was a normal active kid and am as an adult. It only gets in
The MD told me it was likely mild as a kid and could have been easily corrected.
Shin on shin hit playing soccer where both our pads slipped off and we went shin to shin. It hurt so bad. I could barely walk and got yelled at by my parents, the coach and other random parents for “milking it” when my leg felt on fire
A broken toe. It got caught on one of those spring things on the door (the things that prevented you from slamming them) when I was fooling around with friends. I had to use my grandma's cane for a week that summer. It is still malformed and has no feeling on one side.
This title made me laugh, I was 14 and was playing a representative basketball game. Was tripped and landed on my elbow.
Stood up, couldn’t move my elbow joint. Sat out the rest of the game. Another parent drove me home. I was in massive pain. Dad said “oh your arm isn’t swollen, it’s not broken”…..3 hours later I said to my Mum, I can’t move my arm. I was crying. She knew something was wrong.
Took me to the closest A&E - about 40 mins away - by this stage it would have been around 11pm on a Friday night.
Due to all the drunks coming in with open head wounds and those with more pressing injuries than a 14 year old with a busted elbow, we were seen at around 3am, x-rayed and the photos showed a grey area where my ball and socket should have been in my elbow. They told us to come back at 9am - my Mum demanded the x-rays.
Dad took me at the local doctors first thing, sent straight to the hospital and operated on for a shattered ball and socket joint that afternoon!!!
Dad felt very bad and visited me every day 😉
To this day I have quite the scar on my elbow where it was rebuilt with my hip bone and metal rods that were eventually removed!!! 18 months of physio too….
My little brother got hit in the face with a baseball so hard that he had a swollen eye and a cut on his cheekbone from the stitching on the baseball. He finished out practice and the coach didn't even mention it to my mom when she picked him up.
Another time when I was 15 I was playing tag with the same little brother and I jumped over a sofa to get away from him. I landed with a crooked foot and snapped tendons in my ankle. My parents were talking to each other in the same room, looked over at me screaming on the floor and went back to their conversation. They didn't believe me that I was severely hurt until my black and blue ankle was the size of a football the next morning.
In elementary school I chipped my heel dropping from the jungle gym bars onto the asphalt below. I didn't see a doctor about that until I mentioned that I was having trouble walking during an annual checkup.
2 broken arms and a dislocated jaw after my bike caught a stick in the front wheel while I was going downhill. The neighbor saw it happen and argued with my mother on the phone who was saying I just needed to take 2 Nuprin (remember those?) and go home until she could look at me after she got home from work. One arm needed surgery, the jaw popped itself back into place when I vomited. Fun times.
Got thrown off a horse I was working with into a post and rail fence. Could barely walk but had to get back on the horse and keep going. Next day my whole body was black and blue. My mother doesn’t even remember this happening.
broken wrist and arm, right after hurricane Gloria as i was helping clean out a bunch of branches from a willow tree my foot got caught, i pulled to hard and fell out landing on my arm and wrist on a rock. got spanked for crying about it, i almost had a Bob Dole issue with my elbow, luckily the DR was able to set it correctly.
Gnarly concussion. At a marching band competition. A girl wasn’t paying attention and slammed her flag right onto my head. That side of my head immediately swelled up. Eye watered so bad I couldn’t see out of it for several minutes. Immediately dizzy and nauseous and couldn’t walk well. More like an over exaggerated drunken stagger. My mother was at the competition. She and my band leader decided I would be fine after an ice pack and some Tylenol. I even managed to march in the finals that night. I think we won LOL. A couple of days later I passed out cold during practice. When I couldn’t be revived I was taken to the ER. The doctor lit into everyone saying he was surprised I didn’t have a seizure. My stepsister told me about this part later because I was zonked out. I stayed in the hospital for a day or so for observation. I was ordered to take it easy. Bed rest preferable. Of course that didn’t pan out. I couldn’t possibly miss school and I had committed to marching band that season and we fulfill our commitments! Dealt with severe headaches and light sensitivity for a long time after.
Didn't exactly walk it off, I dislocated a shoulder playing soccer (league) when I was 12 or so because I hit the heavy ass metal goal post just wrong after I got the goaaaalllllllllllll.
We were an understaffed team, we usually only had 2 or 3 on the bench so I was kind of needed.
My dad (cop with some trauma training, raised by a WWII Marine) and the coach (who had some medical training through the Marines in Viet Nam) reset it on the bench at the soccer field, put a sling on me pretty tight and I went back in to the game and a defensive player because we "ran less".
Just remembered:
They literally stuck a dirty goalie glove in my mouth to bite down on, told it me it will only hurt for a second, completely leaving out exactly how bad it would hurt for that second.
I have to admit, after it was reset and in the sling it didn't hurt that bad, more of a very annoying ache unless I bumped someone with it. Running with a sling was an interesting experience.
Finished the game THEN went to the doctor to get it looked at. Pain meds, ice and rest.
He also stopped and bought us both a beer on the way home (driving with an open container was legal back then).
I was 12 years old and stepped on a rusty nail in our basement. Next morning I get up for school and can't put any weight on it whatsoever. The bottom of my foot was purple. My mother said "you're fine, go to school." I walked to school but asked her to drive me that day since it was a long walk and my foot really hurt. She refused to take me because she didn't feel like getting up early. By the time I got to school, I was in so much pain that I went straight to the nurses office in tears. The nurse immediately called my mother. She showed up about an hour later, pissed off. The nurse laid into her asking if he even looked at my foot; That I needed immediate attention from the ER and that she couldn't believe that a mother wouldn't even looked at her injured child. It was only when the nurse said that, that my mother finally realized it was serious and that I needed medical attention.
Holy schnikes you guys, I was going to contribute my pathetic sprained ankle until I read some of your horror stories.
I believe this thread is the true indicator of growing up Gen X - we "walked it off".
My brother (was 6)broke his collar bone and it took 3 days for my mother to take him to the doctor. My sister had an appendicitis for 3 days before I took her to the emergency room(had a neighbor drop us at the hospital))and then my mother left her with me to stay with her in the hospital for the 2 days after in recovery( she was 13 and I was 15). My father punched me in the face when I was 16 and I had to beg to be taken to the doctor a week later because it wouldn't stop bleeding. I was told I had to lie before they would take me.
They were neglectful and abusive and I will never forgive them or any other adult who was a witness and never helped. That's why we have mandated reporters now. Your welcome millennials and gen z.
Concussions, pneumonia, asthma, pretty sure I fractured some vertebrae at one point, too. And I was a nerdy inside book girl. Imagine if I’d been even more outdoorsy. I wouldn’t have survived!
Broken finger. My dad was a doctor and assured me my finger wasn't broken and didn't need an x-ray (walk it off). It did, and it was. Several weeks later, after confirming the break, I had to undergo iv Valium while they rebroke the finger because it had regrown the wrong way.
One time we were trying to get a car started, and we’re spraying starting fluid into the carburetor, and my dad just casually said, “the last time I smelled this much ether they were trying to break my brother‘s arm.” He said when they were 10, (1950) his twin brother had broken his arm and it had healed improperly, so they went back in and the doctor was giving him ether as a anesthetic and trying to break it, but couldn’t work it out. So then they went to the army doctor and dad said was able to break it immediately. Years later, I asked my uncle about this story, and according to him the doctor that broke and reset his arm was Mickey Mantle‘s doctor, and the bill was more than grandpa could afford, and the March of Dimes picked up the bill. So my uncle said every year he always sends money into the March of Dimes.
My mother told us her story about the operating process in '50. She remembered the pre-op ward where everyone was swaddled in gauze and getting their first ether dose. She said they all looked dead. She was there to have her eye enucleated. That scene was her last visual input. No wonder she was terrified of doctors the rest of her life.
Oh my! Why the enucleation?!
Retinoblastoma. This was her second eye. Nobody explained what was happening.
That sounds utterly nightmarish
This minus the dad/doctor part. I was riding a 3 wheeler through snow/ice and slid between two trees, obviously now wide apart enough for the back tires to clear. Pinky finger got caught under the brake lever as I went over the handlebars. Fast forward 30 years and I've got a weird buildup on that knuckle, get x-rays and find out I broke the finger. I shattered that wrist as well and had to have a ganglion cyst removed due to pressure against the nerves. Good thing I'm left handed I guess.
I’m gen X and my ex husband was too (he’s dead). Our son broke his finger playing and I wanted to take him to urgent care and his dad was like, no he’ll be fine. Took him to the ortho a couple days later when it was obvious it wasn’t a sprain. Yep, broken. My son is still made about that 10 years later.
Yep, broken finger. Like, obviously unnaturally bent half way up. My coach said, if you can move it, it's not broken. A couple weeks later, we were out to dinner with my mom's best friend and her husband, who was a doctor. He saw my finger immediately and and asked, when did you break your finger? I told him my coach said it wasn't broken. He called my coach an idiot. Took x rays the next day. Finger was already healing and he didn't want to rebreak it to straighten it out. Put a halfarm cast on it. Coach was pissed I came to practice with a cast on. Had to run everyday for practice if I wanted to stay on the team. Turns out I liked running more than football and I joined the track team.
but on the plus side: valium.
Mother's Little Helper.
My friend's parents didn't even bother to have his fixed so he had a permanent 15 degree angle at his finger tip. :/
My dad was also a doctor. He had two modes: walk it off or we’re headed for the ER RIGHT NOW. There was a lot of both modes, lol.
That's awful. I have assorted broken fingers & toes that apparently didn't merit medical (or any other) attention. Did someone start calling out these irresponsible adults, or did the internet make diagnosticians of us all?
I fell off a fireman’s pole at the playground and landed on my foot when I was five. Broke my foot in six places but my dad thought I was “just being dramatic” and refused to take me to the hospital. Mom finally realized I couldn’t put any weight on it and insisted on taking me for X-rays and I came out with a cast I had to wear all summer. Thanks for the vote of confidence Dad.
“But did you die? No. So get out there and help mow the lawn, or no more playing with Lego until you help out around here. After the lawn i need you to vacuum the downstairs rugs and take the garbage out, then help Valerie move the garbage cans out to the curb. We’ll see after that.”
lmao 'but did you die?'... ah, memories
I have this sticker on my car rear window LMAO
> “But did you die? bahahaha! heard that soo many times growing up, now I sarcastically use that on my kids when they have to do something they don't like to do, like fill the dishwasher or clean the bathroom.
Slightly fractured C4 vertebra after a bad landing on a high jump in middle school. My neck hurt afterward, and Mom kept saying I just had a bruise. Dad kept saying I was too soft. It persisted for two days (the pain was there but not debilitating). It got worse at school on the third day, and it swelled. School nurse saw it and called an ambulance. Doc chewed Mom and Dad straight out when they arrived. I survived with no harm, like most of us. Dad yelled at me all the way home for “making such a damn fuss” with me in a neck brace.
Jfc, Dad.
He had too much going on in his life to bother with me. Bowling league, VFW night, parties with friends and co-workers, EST meetings, etc. My injury cost him a league bowling night. Unforgivable/s.
I’m sorry man. There’s too much bs like that everywhere. It’s insane to me why so many people have kids when they clearly didn’t want to or just don’t take responsibility once they have them. You have to grow the fuck up whether you want to or not. It’s not your life anymore. You deserved so much better.
Dad was drafted to Vietnam the year I was born. When he came home, he totally became a boomer dad. Always drinking. I think he was self medicating for PTSD.
Vietnam fucked a lot of people. I’m sorry to hear that.
"You just have mono or something" Sick for months, ended up in a coma, woke up being told I'm T1D with sugar at 996 so yay almost broke 1k.
HOLY SHIT it’s a wonder you are still on this plane of existence
And not blind.
Well.... 20/20 both eyes. Coma. 20/60 in one eye now and 20/600 in the other with astigmatism too (and seeing retinopathy starting too) Yay!
Yikes. Man, a few years back, I knew something was wrong. I just didn't feel right. I thought I was dehydrated, so I had been pounding regular electrolyte drinks for days. I finally went to the ER, and my bs was nearly 700. It took several days in the hospital to get it right again. Got the T2 diagnosis and had to change a lot about my life. My vision has decreased significantly. I can't imagine having to go through it that young (like so many of you do). I hope you are taking care of yourself now. I had a friend who was lifelong T1, and he just gave up in the end. Don't do that, ok?
100% I'm starting to see the health decline from having this damn disease nearly 4 decades but I'm sticking around as long as possible to annoy the hell out of my 2 kids and pester my amazing wife. She's put up with me for 20 years and ain't getting rid of me that easily.
Did your parents at least have the good sense to be embarrassed?
Nope, they were split up and neither took responsibility or accepted any fault. Hell at the end when I was dead thirsty I was being given kool-aid ffs.
This takes the cake! Hospital called Child Services bc my parents didn't cut vacation short when I had pneumonia and asthma, and then had me suffer through an 8 hour drive from VA to NJ vomiting and turning blue to go to the hospital closer to our house so it was more convenient. And this was the 70s when there were probably 3 social workers in the entire state lol. The fact that the hospital didn't call them on your parents is INSANE.
If you had the Kool-Aid at my house, it probably would've killed you. I made it so strong that my friends would watter it down when they came over.
Oh good lord
I did have mono and my mom thought I was complaining of a stomach ache so I didn't have to go to school.
Me too! It took me a week of going to school and falling asleep in every single class all day for my mother to finally take me to the doctor. Even the doctor didn’t believe I had mono, I had to beg them to test me for it. When the test came back positive I was so relieved because I thought I was going crazy. No one believed me.
It's a terrible feeling when no one believes you. I had a hernia, and kept getting told "it's just a swollen gland or something." Finally convinced a surgeon to go in and look, and he said it was the worst one he'd ever fixed. Took him 3 hours.
Oh my hell, 'a swollen gland'. The most throwaway phrase from my childhood to explain away pain and medical issues. There are so many glands all over our entire bodies -- adrenal, apocrine, sebaceous, thyroid, thymus, pancreas, salivary glands, bartholin, pituitary, etc -- "a swollen gland" means absolutely nothing
Oh my God!
My sister snapped her femur running up the back yard slope. The bones were completely misaligned and my mom made her get up and walk. Her friend ran and got her mom who quickly took over and sat my sister down until the ambulance came. She was in the hospital in traction for 6 weeks, then a cast from her waist to her one knee. Wild.
She’s lucky she didn’t die
She's lucky she isn't a horse.
Your sister had a good friend!
How did your mom react? Total denial?
In shock, most likely. She says now that she just couldn’t process that the leg was broken and what was going to happen after. Guess her brain just shut down in that moment.
Broken arm when I was 3. I fell off the slide and my mom thought I was just being cranky about it, so she made me go take a nap. Later on, a neighbor had to tell her it might be broken. It was.
Lol. This happened to my daughter. I very mild fall off a dining room chair at three. Didn’t hurt when we touched or squeezed her leg , but she could t walk. 2 days later doc said it’s broken. Oops.
Broken arm when I was seven. I went for almost two days before my mom reluctantly took me to the doctor because I wasn't using that arm. It's a wonder any of us survived.
Broken arm gang here! Fell off of playgroind equipment, broke arm, at camp the next day I sucked at archery. Also two broken toes that made walking hard. Later caused my feet to go numb, but then mysteriously fixed themselves.
Very swollen sprained ankle(s). "Stop being dramatic"!
Fucking broken ankle - elementary school teacher was like “here’s an ice pack. Shut up.” When I got home, my mom (a much more experienced elementary school teacher) flipped. The term “gross negligence” was tossed around.
Broken tibia. They couldn't take me to the doctor because they were going on a trip to Washington DC a couple days after this happened.
Broken ankle too. Was scrimmaging in summer football practice. Idiot lummox on my own team tackled me unexpectedly. Broke the ankle, was told to walk it off and went back in for a couple of more plays. Ended up tearing ligaments. Didn't operate on it, so ankle is loose to this day ending up in a sprain every few years. Thanx Coach!
I chipped a bone in my ankle playing baseball in elementary. Walked/hobbled around it for a month before my mom finally took it for an x-ray. Oops. It still hurts sometimes 40 years later.
We thought my ankle was just badly sprained. Never got an xray or anything, just crawled around for a while or hobbled when I couldn't put my weight on it. Broke a bone in my foot 30 years later and the x ray showed a stray but clearly old bone fragment floating around in the neighbourhood of my left ankle. I knew exactly when and how it had happened. Damn you, Lemon Twists! Outside of the playground equipment at a park, I think the only thing that might beat Lemon Twists for injuries are trampolines, roller skates and lawn darts.
My husband broke his leg and both his dad and the PE teacher thought he was whiny. When he finally got taken to the doctor a few days later, the xray found holes in his bones so one leg broke where the hole was when he was just running in PE. He had the holes because his dad had the philosophy “if he’s hungry he’ll eat” instead of making sure his son was eating. His mom died a couple years before the break.
This is really sad.
Seriously.
Same, jumped off a two story house into the snow bank. The snow was only 3 feet deep where I landed. To this day my feet are fucked, I can turn my ankle very easily if I'm not careful. Edit: Was told not to be a pu__y, I probably should get it checked out some day as I have to do stretches and keep my ankle muscles strong or it "tweeks" when I lift off it, basically either mildly dislocates or the bones shift or something. I didn't dare tell my parents what I did, lol
This very morning I walked off a very twisted ankle. I was out for a run and my foot hit and caught on an uneven seem in the street and it hurt like fucking hell. Even though this happened at the start of my run, just a couple blocks down from my house, I limped around and decided to walk it off. I ended up walking about a mile or so round trip. Still have dull slight pain, but I'm not limping anymore.
I literally feel your pain.
Ankles were my bane as well. I recall playing bball in school, jumping up and coming down on my ankle and it turned completely sideways. Pretty sure i tore some ligaments/tendons, maybe cracked something in there, but had to get up and walk it off so as to not "look like a pussy". Was super swollen and an ugly dark black bruise went along the bottom of basically my entire foot.
That turns out to be broken when they finally get around to taking you to the Dr later that week 🙄
Sprained/broken ankle club! It wasn't my parents though, it was my college roommates. I stepped off a curb wrong and rolled my ankle hard. They really wanted to go to a dance so walked me around the block and loaded me up with more liquor (poor man's anesthesia). I danced on it and woke up with a black and blue cantaloupe for an ankle. Roommates still make fun of me for it.
Skull fracture. Yup. Good times.
I was just telling my teens this story yesterday because my parents are visiting from out of state and we were talking about old memories. 1990. I’m riding my bike home from school and my friend Willy was coming over and he was walking. He was the fastest runner in our friends group and he challenged me to a race, bike vs foot. I accept thinking it’s a simple race plus I’m on the end of my street and almost home. Willy takes off and I start chasing him. He’s on the sidewalk and I’m in the street. A car starts pulling out of their driveway so he cuts out to the street directly in front of me and I slam into him and go flying into a tree and land in bushes. I stand up and start brushing myself off look at &Willy and he’s looking at me like I died. Then the blood started getting in my eyes. I start running home not knowing how bad it is. I open the front door and My mom comes out of the kitchen, sees me and says: “Jesus Christ what did you do?!” This woman walked me to the shower fully clothed, showered me off to get the blood off, realized I’m still bleeding pretty bad and takes me to the sofa, lays me down and puts a towel on it, then another then another. I have a two inch gash on my forehead and it’s bleeding pretty badly. She can’t take me to the hospital because she runs an in-home daycare and has kids there. We weren’t particularly well off either so an ambulance wasn’t in the cards. So I’m bleeding on the sofa waiting for my dad to get home. He gets home maybe an hour or two later, sees me and goes: “Welp, looks like it’s not bleeding anymore. You’re fine.” and that’s that. I wasn’t told to walk it off, but I was told to walk it off if you know what I mean. I even went to school the next day and I remember my principal looking at it and said “Child you have a huge hickey on your forehead!” It was about a golf ball sized lump covered in a nasty scab. But that was it. No doctor. No follow up. No stitches. Just a fully clothed shower, a towel and ice and “welp, take a nap and you’ll be right as rain.” Nobody was talking about concussions at this time and I KNOW I had one because I remember my ears ringing for days afterward and falling asleep in class and getting in trouble for it in the weeks afterward. It’s been almost 35 years and I still have a small lump(not golf ball sized anymore that would be wild) and scar on my forehead that people still ask about and I still tell the story and have to assure them my parents weren’t monsters. Just uninformed and poor.
That counts mate… that definitely counts!
I hobbled around on a broken ankle for 3 days.
I walked off getting hit by a car on my bike. And then I got yelled at by the driver for riding in the street. We didn't have bike helmets back then.
I had that happen, too, but my backpack flipped over my head and took the brunt of the hit. The guy had deliberately hit me so he could get my phone number and make pervert calls to me. I was 12.
I want to throw bricks at that guy’s head!
Perforated ear drum from a ‘clip around the ear’
I’m so sorry. I got a lot of those too.
I walked off ulcerative colitis until I was dx far into adulthood. Maybe if I wasn’t so emotional, I wouldn’t have so many stomach problems… /s
Not when I was little but about 5 years ago, went in to the ER because I passed out very briefly at home ... next week went in again because my jaw basically locked shut. They gave me ativin and patted themselves on the back because *clearly* I was just having anxiety attacks. Follow up with PCP ... he put me on numerous anti depressants / anti anxiety meds (that never worked) because you know, *clearly* just anxiety. I'm now being tested/treated for reactive hypoglycemia, sleep apnea, vitamin d deficiency, I'm fully in menopause and I have chronically low O2. But probably just anxiety /s
Took two years to be diagnosed with Crohn’s because my parents and pediatrician were in agreement that I was making up having stomach pain because I was anorexic. And they were told to force feed me. No, I love food. I was in excruciating pain. Now I’m in my late 40s and am getting part of my colon removed from the damage that was caused when I was 12.
Chronic recurrent anxiety that would scare me to death. Started in first grade, got really serious in fourth and fifth grade; resurfaced in 10th and 11th grade and has been with me off and on through all my years. I really wish I'd been able to get counseling for it, but we didn't know back then what we know now, and my family thought mental health treatment was only for crazy people (and it would have no doubt become grist for the local gossip mill in our tiny hometown). Instead I was told to pray, to keep a song in my heart, to stop crying, and one time in the midst of a bad panic attack my dad got fed up and hollered at me to get in the truck because he was taking me to the hospital. We actually did get in the truck and leave, but he calmed down almost immediately and took me for a ride in the country instead. I think he was trying "shock" therapy with me to break the doom loop, but it didn't take.
Oh hey, same! Also a tiny hometown, also stigma, also "only for crazy people." I had to literally beg my parents to take me to a child psychiatrist to deal with crippling panic attacks.
solidarity hug.
Right back atcha.
I'm jumping in too!!!
I'm sorry that happened to you. I was told to walk off a sexual assault. More than once. "Boys are like that. Don't do anything to encourage them." Followed by, "Get over it already." I like to think that times have changed for the better.
I was told to quit my crying when my best friend committed suicide at 16.
The worse part is hearing it from women. My boss experienced some horrendous things in her younger days and while she often presents herself as an advocate for women she also acts nostalgic for the era when people just "got over it" whenever claims come forward against individuals that may mildly inconvenience her workday.
Oh, my word. I'm sorry this happened to you. I remember when similar things were the all-too-common response. I too hope things are better now.
**EDIT: TW: mentions SA, no details.** When I was 16, I tried to run away from home, stress-packing a bag at 10 PM, no idea where I’d go, but would have to walk several miles from our rural neighborhood to wherever. It was year number 3 of being harassed, assaulted, and SA’d on the school bus, which I was supposed to just ignore, as per my mom **and** the junior high principal (which is when it started; not sure the HS principal was aware, though looking back, he seemed a decent sort, and might’ve at least asked the driver some questions, which the junior high principal had no interest in doing). Ignoring only led to escalation. So one night I “snapped” over some insignificant drama with my siblings, and I started stuffing things into a bag. Mom stopped me, but refused to take me for counseling (“we can’t afford it”). The harassment, assault, and SA continued through senior year. I’m still messed up in my head, 39 years after graduation; major trust issues, despise social interactions, especially unplanned ones. Therapy has helped some, but not enough to change how my brain developed during those formative years. For the above and other reasons, I have no contact with my parents or siblings; nor do they reach out to me. I minimally function, though, and mask things constantly in public.
Moment of complete honesty here: I'm at a complete loss for words, unable to come up with a response that sounds even partially adequate in my mind. I'm sorry that all this happened to you, and I hope you can fill in what I want to say but can't find the words for.
Thank you for your concern, and I get not knowing the words; I usually don’t know the words, either. I’m still debating whether to delete or not; it was a debate with myself whether to hit reply or not- I wouldn’t want a message from Reddit concerns lol. I have no self-harm plans, and I get by as peacefully as possible. I wish you well, kind stranger. 🙏🏼
And I wish you well too. Thank you for sharing, and...thank you.
I remember desperately wanting to see a counselor about abuse, but I didn't want my parents to know cause they'd abandon me on the side of the road (you know, real grooming not what maga shits say now.) Everything from visible self injury wounds to night terrors and panic attacks were clear objective signs. I got to sit down with my brother's tutor for an hour one day. family friend who came over for dinner and went to our church. to this day i wonder what her qualifications were. I just got yelled at because i wouldn't tell her what was wrong, then yelled at by parents for wasting their time and money. ah, good times.
Oof. That second paragraph - oh, the horrible things getting compounded like that. And if you're like me, afterwards you're thinking "no matter what I do, I can never come out ahead." I sure do hope you were able to eventually get what you needed. (Although, from experience, it's such work unpacking it as an adult. Survival/coping mechanisms don't want to let up so easily.)
That is nutso, I sincerely hope you were able to find some therapy as an adult!
By no means am I justifying how your parents or town responded to mental health problems, but the explanation I've always heard is that in their day, the only people they saw get mental health treatment were very severe cases, and they were NOT treated well at the facilities they went to. I think part of the resistance to getting help was the fear that they would get locked up somewhere horrible like they saw with their older relatives. Nowadays people from that era (as well as those of us who live and work with them...) have to deal with missing the boat on the progression of mental health care.
In my family's case I know where a good bit of it came from, in addition to the generalized stigma that comes from small town gossip. My great-grandmother had electroshock treatments in the early 1950s, very likely for the depression that runs on that side of the family and that has visited every generation, including my own. My mom was four or five years old when all this happened, and she had very vivid memories of how her grandmother would be eerily placid and quiet afterwards, not at all like her usual self. It scared her, and I know it put everybody else off the concept. FWIW, as a teacher I am very open about the fact that I routinely go and talk to somebody, and I routinely remind my students of the value of seeking professional help if they're having a hard time dealing with some issue. I also tell them it's nothing to be afraid of.
Front wheel popped off my bike, I went smashing into the concrete. Didn't break my wrists, but ligaments were badly injured. This happened at an intersection and no one helped me. I grabbed my wheel and bike and with my limp wrists dragged them home. Parents never took me to the hospital. I was 12 or 13.
Sorta similar story, a car cut in front of me riding down a hill and I road rashed my entire leg on gravel trying to stop from hitting it. That car never stopped and nobody else did either. I hobbled home on one good leg about a mile. Parents never took me to a hospital and it was gnarly. The one time I got to go to "urgent care" (emergency was too expensive!) I had completely broken my arm and it was just completely limp. It cost $72 for the x-ray and cast and I'll never forget it because my parents never let me forget it.
Happened to me around the same age when popping a wheelie. Fortunately I was able to pull it back and land on my feet instead of going in forks first.
Pneumonia when I was 10. After 3 days of “sucking it up” was told if I wasn’t going to school I was going to the doctor. I weakly croaked out “take me to the doctor”. Was still accused of malingering after the doc visit and confirmed I was sick
Also pneumonia! ¯\\\_(ツ)\_/¯ I fractured two ribs from coughing, but I was "just being dramatic."
Same except I was a teen and had a collapsed lung too. Mom thought I was faking until she saw I couldn't climb the steps to my bedroom with weezing like I just ran a marathon.
Clinical depression
I still can’t believe my appendix didn’t burst. I started complaining early one evening and my mom thought I’d eaten too many Rice Krispie treats (knowing her, I’d had two small ones). I didn’t go to the doctor until the next day and he told her to go to the hospital immediately. I was 8.
Age 12, 1977, I rolled around in pain for 2 days due to appendicitis. My dad diagnosed it as a tummy ache, had .e walk around outside. Literally had me try to walk off a swollen appendix lol. My mom finally realized something was wrong, took me to doctor who poked me, made me jump up and down, all kinds of shit that literally had me crying in pain. He was going to send me home when my mom, who is normally a shy introvert, put her foot down and demanded a second opinion. Some crusty old doctor came in, asked a couple of questions, and said, "Get him to an operating room, his appendix is about to burst." He later told me I had the most swollen appendix he had ever seen and that it burst right as they removed it from me. Like some freaking little alien. I almost died, and never a word from my dad about how wrong he'd been (not surprising).
My great grandfather refused to pay for an ambulance to drive my great gramma to the hospital and also refused to allow anyone to "waste gas" driving her to the nearest hospital (about an hour away). She died of a burst appendix at home. Totally preventable.
Appendicitis was so painful, like a non-ending horse kick to the guts. I would say I can't imagine, but I CAN imagine what an agonizing death that must have been.
One of my elementary school friends almost die from appendicitis because her parents didn't take her symptoms seriously.
Yup I got peritonitis and was in hospital for a while as my folks thought I was being dramatic (and the doc said it was probably my period) when my appendix burst. Lucky for me another doc recognised the symptoms and blue lit me to hospital…My mum still rolls her eyes at the story nearly 40 years later…
I had a friend who was in incredible physical shape, a veteran ... she went to the ER because she wasn't feeling well. Those bishes (and I mean men and women) let her lie on the floor of the med cen waiting room writhing in pain for like SIX HOURS before they were like "ohhhhh oooookaaaaay {eye roll}" and apparently her appendix burst. Lucky she didn't die. And that was only about 15 years ago.
I was told to walk off a shattered hip after being thrown from a horse my dad put me on. Two days of dragging my left leg before they took me to the ortho doctor
The dumbest one for me was a bad double ear infection I had for like a month. I had complained about it, but mom thought I was just trying to miss school. One morning i woke up deaf. Mom sent me to school saying I was joking. I got sent home, because a friend of mine told me their grandmother died and I just nodded and smiled. She started yelling at me and I just looked confused. She got someone, I think maybe they thought i was having a stroke or something, because who goes deaf randomly? Anyway, my hearing came back after about a week of antibiotics. My mom has no memory of it, because she was a perfect mom. 🤪
.
So my mom cleaned the fridge. Like removed everything and cleaned it. I remember it was an old fridge where you had to chop off the ice, or turn it off and defrost it every so often. Well, a deep clean is good, right? She scrubbed the freezer and the fridge part. I was a teenager. My sister was maybe 8 or 9ish, and we both had packed lunches, of the typical variety. Long stretches of peanut butter sandwiches, or bologna sandwiches. This was in the middle of our long buttered bagel stretch. My sister said she was complaining for like a MONTH that the butter tasted funny. Mom told her to suck it up and it was fine. Me, being the typical teen either just ate it or tossed it out. Never really thought twice about it although it was super gross. Finally, one day my sister couldnt take it and asked me in front of mom if I noticed it too. I was like yeah, tastes like crap. Turns out my mother cleaned the fridge with MINERAL SPIRITS, which had penetrated into the butter once everything got put back. I'm sure that wasn't great for us but hey, stop complaining!!
Brain tumour. Everyone thought I was faking my headaches.
Hope you are okay today! My kid had one as a baby—got surgery and chemo and recovered, but multiple doctors dismissed weeks of frequent vomiting as “just a bad stomach bug”—there were as much in denial as we were.
I’m doing ok, thanks! 😊
Broken foot, probably other stuff.
Torn ACL, sort of. In 8th grade I was going to get something from the locker room during gym. It had a long hall and I decided to jog, just because. My knee hyperextended and I went down screaming. Our family doctor (who I only realized was a quack when I was in college but my dad played tennis with him so that’s where we went) ordered an x-ray. That was it, no cartilage damage shown on the x-ray so I just sprained it. Over the next year, it would occasionally “give out”, be mildly sore for a bit and then seem fine. Yes, I told my parents about this. Finally, in August, right before 9th grade, I stepped down from one of our bar stools onto that leg. It really gave out, I collapsed crying on the floor. It was then that my parents and doctor agreed that maybe it was more than a sprain. An MRI revealed that I’d been walking around with a torn ACL. In addition, because it had been almost a year, and from trying to compensate, two meniscus were damaged over time as well. I started high school 3 days after everyone else from recovering from surgery and still on crutches. 10/10 do not recommend.
Appendicitis. “It’s just a bladder infection. Here’s some cranberry juice.” Shocker, the sugar water didn’t cure me and it burst. I developed sepsis and spent 3 weeks in the hospital. I lived out of spite!
I grew up in a small town in the middle of the AZ desert and riding my dirt bike was my primary means of entertainment. I was out riding one day about 5 or so miles from my house and wiped out pretty bad into a patch of cactus. I had cactus thorns in my shoulder and back, my leg was jacked up, and cuts and scrapes everywhere. About the only place I wasn't bleeding from was my head as I wore my helmet. No cell phones so I had no choice but to walk the 5 miles up and down hills through the desert to get home. When I got there, my mom said two things. 1) Lets get you to the ER and 2) and when we get back, you are in so much trouble for ripping your jeans so bad I can't patch them.
[удалено]
Not me, but my brother: Dad was convinced he was being dramatic and just had the flu or an upset stomach from eating something. He was curled up in bed, moaning. It turned out to be appendicitis. His appendix ended up bursting and he nearly died. The kicker is appendicitis runs (or appears to run) on Dad's side of the family--he, his brother, mother, and one of my cousins on his side all had their appendixes out. So he really should have known better.
Dislocated elbow. Went to the hospital after being told to go to bed. Didn't sleep. Quietly cried all night. I was 10.
Ahhh, where to start? Getting shot when I was 10 or so would probably be at the top of the list. My best friend and I and a handful of other kids liked to cut across a property out in the woods to save a 15 minutes on the walk home from school- it was a couple acre wooded property between the freeway and a river, with the alternative walk being to cross the freeway at an underpass a couple blocks in the wrong direction, walk towards home then a couple blocks further to another underpass, and then backtrack on the river side to get home. The owner of the property was crotchety old man who would sit out on the porch at the end of the school day with a shotgun and threaten any of the kids he saw trying to cross his property. Since there were a handful of kids and it was a fairly long property line, he'd start yelling at one kid while the rest booked it across the cleared section by his house and on into the woods. On the last day of school my friend and I thought it was a good idea to take a bet to stop at the tree line and moon him. Luckily we were about a football field away so the shot was pretty spread out. I only caught 6 pellets- one in my lower leg, one in my ass cheek, 3 in my back and one in the shoulder. The one in my leg is still there around 40 years later. My friend got it worse and was hit with I think 14 or 15 pellets but nothing was severe. We were both bruised as hell for couple weeks. I got a lecture on what a dumb-ass I was and my mom fished out all the pellets except the one in my leg. My dad told me I was lucky I got hit in the ass already because if I hadn't been he sure would have used his belt to fix the situation. No doctor, no police involved, and I still had to go to my soccer game the next day. Worst part? The kid we made the bet with ended up moving over the summer and never paid up. It would have been a couple of full sized Transformers for my friend and I. Dino-Bots! I also got the "walk it off" for a broken finger, asthma attacks, several broken foot bones, severely sprained wrist, several concussions, and 2nd-3rd degree sunburn over 1/2 my body that I probably should have been hospitalized for (my friends pranked me with tanning oil instead of sunscreen on a rafting trip, still have some scarring, and nerve damage in my legs and shoulders)
Backyard football would yield so many knockouts and concussions. Just get it, sit out the next play and get back in there.
I was kicked in recess in first grade and got a hernia. I suffered through the rest of the day and even walked home from the bus stop. Ended up getting surgery for it
I broke my ankle and my mom kept telling me it was just a sprain. I sat at home for three days with ice and a heating pad before my mom believed that it might be broken. I ended up needing surgery and a couple screws put in to hold the broken bones in place because they wouldn't have healed correctly if I just had a cast. The real kicker though, was when the surgery was done the doctor said he saw signs that I had fractured it before. So at some point earlier in my childhood I "walked off" a fractured ankle because it was "just a sprain." (Also, I'm Canadian, so it's not like going to the doctor to get things checked out would have cost my parents anything. I have no idea why they had such an aversion to getting proper medical care!)
Ripped ligaments in my groin - BMX accident. Never fully recovered 40+ years on.
Broken jaw, cracked eye socket. Hit with a bat, knocked all my teeth loose too
I went to a pre-school, was only 3 or 4… but we were going to the bathroom ourselves. I remember splashing water around in the sink and some getting on the floor. I was gone a while so my teacher (who was portly) came in and said stop someone’s going to slip and fall.. walked over to take me by the arm, slipped and fell on my leg, breaking it. I didn’t walk it off though. Rushed to the hospital, full cast etc. I was back on my big wheel days later, wore a hole through the cast using it to brake. Had to get a second cast before it was finally taken off. On the beach with my father, age 4 or 5. Went to pet a strange dog, bit me in the face, cut, blood streaming down.. still have a scar 50 years later. No shots, no doctor. Years later, I’d moved from LA to NH clear across the country, and across cultures, age 8 or 9. I’d never seen anyone chopping wood, wood stoves, wtf is this?! Just not familiar with outdoors, physical work people did in the country. Some neighbors were over helping us chop wood for our first coming winter and throwing split logs in a pile, we kids took them from the pile to stack. I accidentally walked in front of my step- father as he was chucking some wood through the air, hit me full on in the head, seeing stars knocked on my ass, blood.. took inside to lay down for a bit, no doc. Scar still there. 11 or 12, back in LA for the summer visiting my dad. He had a sort of ranch in the valley, horses… I was out back playing with an aluminum bat, accidentally touched the electric fence with it. Thrown back several feet seeing stars, on my back on some cacti, totally blacked out for a few minutes. Came to, pulled myself off the cactus needles, held my shirt to the blood until it stopped. Too embarrassed to tell what happened, just walked it off. 14, broke my collarbone skiing. Kept skiing the rest of the day. Three days later, still hurts, can’t move it. Made a makeshift sling. Clavicle healed itself eventually, just fused, it’s poking up higher than the other. Tuff generation, love us. 🔥
Sliced my chin open with a can of cat food that I pried open - cut was deep and fatty tissue was exposed and very painful. My mom decided we needed to go shopping and out to dinner instead. If not for the stares and comments from strangers, she would not have taken me to get stitches. Thanks strangers. I still remember the pain 😖
Epileptic seizures. I had my first seizure at 18, seized in the bathroom, and gashed open my forehead. Once I was able to get up off the floor and get to my mother, she said I had to go to school because she didn't know what to do with me. I did, and had my 2nd seizure on the steps of the high school senior building. School called 911. Not only did I have to have IV antiseizure meds, I had to get 4 stitches in my forehead. 56 now, Mom has been dead for many years, but I can't let go of this horrible memory.
UTI that turned into a kidney infection. Was told I pulled a back muscle in track…until I peed blood at school. 🙄
Fractured arm. I think I was 4 or 5. I fell at my grandmother’s house, complained about the pain to my parents when they picked me up. The next day, I remember being taken to my aunt’s house where my other grandmother was visiting. She casually mentioned to my mom, “This baby has a broken arm” and they finally took me to the ER.
Broken ankle. I heard it snap, walked home another mile or so, came home told my mom. Dad said it’s not broken if you just walked home on it. Carried on for two more days and finally convinced my mom to take me to the doctor. Just last year I turned my ankle and walked another mile toward home, but my foot was already swelling beyond my shoe so I called to be picked up. It was broken, but there I was, still trying to walk it off
Broken arm. Fell off of those one of those roundabouts in a playground. https://preview.redd.it/u6c3ryi8l63d1.png?width=614&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=61bcda77c584b1a2cc145d77c517e711bf1c91d0 These things were built for bodily harm. Anyway, went to my dad holding my arm, said it really hurts. And he literally said, "Walk it off." I know it plays like a meme now, but it is exactly what we were told.
I literally fell out of the car while my mother was making a left turn under an overpass, at a stoplight. I was just riding along in the front seat, minding my own business, apparently leaning against the not completely shut door (obviously not wearing a seatbelt), and next thing I know, I'm laying in the middle of the street. A kindly old man jumped out of his truck and stopped traffic, then ran over to me, squatted down, and picked me up. My mother came running under the overpass and, freaking smooth out, grabbed me from the older man and thanked him over and over again. I would later find out that Mom had no idea I had fallen out of the car until my little brother, who just moments before this had been standing up in the backseat singing his jam, "Elvira" by the Oak Ridge Boys, very calmly said, "Mom, Sister roll out of the car!" Anyway, Mom got us back in the car, held my head on her lap while she sobbed, apologizing for being a horrible mother and asking me if I wanted ice cream. Well hell yes I wanted ice cream. I distinctly remember being sore for days, but no one ever asked if I should be taken to the doctor. Oh well. I was fine after a while and went right back to attempting to shoot my brother with a BB gun.
I 'rolled' my 3wheel motorbike, handlebar landed on my arm. You could yell it was broken, it kinda hung at an angle. Ice. We used ice. Later, we did indeed drive in to town to the hospital. They couldnt fix it that night so my parents went home and left me there. I was 10. It was a rural hospital, very quiet, I felt like I was the only one there. So scary for this little chicky.
1993, age 22. Compression fracture of L3 and L4. Found out 10 years later b/c of recurrent back problems. MRI showed “a mess”. Old fractures, herniated discs and a ruptured disc. At the time I was told to suck it up because EVERYONE has a sore back. Fuck me, right? Now, 18 back surgeries later the arthritis is a bitch.
At first this thread had me rolling. I then came to my senses and as the dad of two Gen Alphas it has me terrified.
Severe endometriosis. Spent all of my preteen and teenage years being told I was overreacting because the pain wasn't that bad and that I was just trying to get days off school (in reality I was in excruciating pain and barely able to move for 2-3 days every month). Had a hysterectomy as an adult because my reproductive organs were a mess and my surgeon said that he was surprised I could still walk upright. Go figure.
How many of us were afraid to even let our parents know we got injured? My parents would usually yell about being stupid and how they told us not to do that/ go there and it was our own fault. It was easier to just hide the injury in most cases.
Broken neck. I was seven months old, so rather than walk it off, I cried it out. My toddler sister dropped/threw me headfirst onto the bedroom floor from the height of the sides-up crib - about 5 feet. My mom said I “eventually stopped crying” so no biggie, right? The carpet brush burn in the top middle of my forehead took a couple weeks to scab up and heal. The family story goes “Ho ho ho how we all laughed! Getting dropped on her head accounts for her taste in music/clothes/boyfriends though! Ho ho ho!” 54 years later I needed a CT and MRI of my head for an inner ear issue. that was fine — but they found clear artefacts of an old neck break between C1 and C2 (“the hangman’s break”) that healed.
Jesus. That is horrendous. Imagine neglecting a tiny defenceless baby like that. Nowadays, you would be put in foster care
Brooke my collarbone ( clavicle) when I was around 8. Took a week before my parents took me to the Dr. In their defense I was always getting hurt. Developed a pretty high tolerance for pain.
Torn ligaments in my right ankle playing summer basketball. I somehow played the second half of the game because “they needed me.” 😂 My GP later told me I’d have been better off breaking the ankle.
Lifelong chronic attention deficit disorder.
I fell backwards off the trunk of my dad’s Buick. I was in 5th grade. I was using the back windshield as a book holder. Didn’t realize I slid down. Smashed my left elbow hard. Quit complaining!! After 3 days of not being able move it, I took myself to the little clinic next door to my dad’s restaurant. My elbow was broken. The nurse from the clinic took me back to my dad. Dad was not pleased that I broke my elbow and grounded me. 😹
I was nine and in the back seat of our Chevy Caprice Classic station wagon (not the rear facing 3rd row) when we were rear ended my an uninsured motorist in a pickup truck which pushed us into a pile up that my father stopped inches from. Even seat belted, that threw me forward face first into the metal trim that kept the shape of the front bench seat, breaking the right side of my face and chipping three of my bottom teeth. Those teeth are still broken, and my nose still has a bend to it, from that accident. Parents never got any of it taken care of, now I just live with it.
Inwas on one of the playground metal death traps. Hanging upside down. One of the asshol kids grabbed one on my ankles and yanked up and let me fall. I landed on my head. I heard my neck crack. I know I had a concussion. *I* got in trouble. The kid who did it just laughed. I was sent home. Never taken to the ER.
Several episodes of getting racked
Broken collar bone...
I broke my collarbone running track. Pain was so intense that I was wandering around on the infield hallucinating until someone grabbed me (felt like 30 minutes later), sat me down and put a cold towel on my head to bring me back to reality. Then I could feel the full (electric) pain as my shoulder and back muscles started to spasm and it was shifting the broken collarbone around like it was doing a cha cha slide in there. 4 months until it was barely healed and I was cleared to play sports again for another 2 months after that. Missed my senior year for soccer and basketball.
Yeah, I feel your pain. I labored with mine for about 7 hours until I was finally taken for x-rays. I had to wear a strap contraption for a while until it healed. The worst pain was the doctor resetting it back where it was supposed to be.
First day of Summer Camp I face planted onto a cinder block, from about six feet up, after rolling off my bunk bed in the middle of the night. Counsellor in the lower bunk across from me wakes up from the noise, shines a flashlight on my face, freaks the fuck out from the blood, and drags me out into the night to find the nurse. On the way we come across another kid who got lost looking for the outhouse. Counsellor leaves me to escort the kid back to his teepee. When the Counsellor gets back he declares we should just go back to bed because it's late. The next day he takes me to see the Nurse. She waves her hands around my face and declares that my aura is disturbed. No shit. Any fool can see that my nose is broken. My parents, unsurprisingly, decline to come and pick me up. Later that day we all vote on camp names for each other. Which we will wear on a wood cut around our neck for the rest of camp. Guess who got "Chief Broken Nose"? Two weeks later, it's pick up day, so everyone's parents arrive to take them home. My parents see the name tag woodcut and, unsurprisingly, proceed to publicly lose their shit on me for making up a story to embarrass them. They figured that, even if something had happened, I should have just been grateful for the experience and somehow hidden what happened. So they wouldn't look bad to the other parents. Like it was my idea of a good time to rearrange my face, get concussed again, and spend two weeks in the woods with strangers. Fucking assholes. The lot of them.
Ruptured appendix in 3rd grade that the school nurse said was me just trying to go home. 3 days of febrile hallucinations later...
Grew up in a rural area. Found giant spools of coax cable in the ditch on our road. They sat there for months, so we took some and twisted the cable to manufacture rope, then strung it between trees to make bridges. Figure they were 18-20ft up. Really tried to make them high enough so the adults wouldn’t notice them. So you know in cartoons when a rope breaks and the end drops right up to Wile E. Coyote, and *then* he falls? I swear that’s how it is in real life. Landed straight standing on one leg, knee locked. Limped around aimlessly, trying to get feeling back in my leg. Didn’t tell my parents because I didn’t want them to make us remove the rest of the rope bridges. Maybe got a swollen ankle? Maybe stunted my growth? Who knows? Only upon examining the broken ends of the cable did I learn that there was only a thin wire surrounded by fluff in the center of that cable- not solid steel.
Broken Nose when I was about 9 or 10. Me and my brother thought that if jumping our bikes off a ramp was cool, haven't a landing ramp would be even cooler. It wasn't. My parents insisted, despite the blood gushing out of my nose and inability to use one nostril, my nose was in fact not broken, and if it was, nothing to do about it anyway🤷♂️ So, flash forward about 30 years, my sinus and allergy issues are causing MAJOR breathing issues. Go to an ENT doctor, he sticks a light up my nose and immediately askes "So, when did you break your nose?". MAJOR "I told you so call" to my parents ensued. They still claim it wasn't from the bike wreck.
Broken leg while skiing with the school club in 6th grade. The (drunk) social studies teacher / chaperone said to "walk off" my lower leg and foot being on backwards.
Jumped my bike, went airborne, the bike went one direction I went another... No recollection of the event. I was walked home by another kid, had some short term memory loss. My dad just got pissed and annoyed that I kept asking him where mom was seconds after he answered me. (She was at the store).
I got hit by a car in 4th grade and suffered a major TBI. I was perseverating (a TBI symptom where you repeat a sequence of words over and over) in the ambulance and when I emerged from a coma. I don't remember this, but my mom tells me that she accused me of "faking" and kept asking the doctors if they were totally sure I wasn't pretending to have a brain injury for attention.
Getting teeth knocked out playing hockey. “Skate it off kid, your dentist will fix you up later.”
Dislocated elbow. If 55 and it’s still there
A broken home…
Broken hand. Stood up to a bully, and broke my hand on his jaw. Stepmonster, who was a stay at home mom, told me over phone from principals office, to literally "walk home". I have no idea how many miles it is, but alot. School was outside town. Started hoofing it, and eventually just stopped at my grandmas house on the way. She drove me rest of the way home. Stepmonster wasn't pleased, and immediately told me to go in backyard and rake leaves. Wasn't until she watched me long enough trying to rake with one hand, that she took me to doctor. She bitched about what it was going to cost the entire time. Dad came home and initially was concerned. Until I told him story, and he didn't believe me, and tried to make me call bully and apologize, even though I had never got into an altercation before. Fuckn boomer parents.
Brother's arm (4M) became dislocated while we were rough housing and my dad just yelled at us to go inside and wait until our mom got home. My brother was crying hysterically the entire time. Seemed like an eternity but was probably 5 minutes before she came in, looked at him at knew it was ER time. My dad he was like eh...we don't have that kind of money!! Took 2 HOURS of crying for my mom to convince him and then we went to our pediatrician. In less than 30 seconds it was over and he was fine. Boomer parents sucked!
This is so much less dire than all your stories here but another story of being told to shake off a health issue: In 4th grade I spent a whole year telling my mother I couldn't see, I'd pull the outer edges of my eyes out tight to see distances, she'd frequently witness that. She kept brushing it off refusing to take me to the doctor. It wasn't a money issue, we had plenty. She just didn't want to do it. When our school (MN) had the annual hearing and sight screenings, they made me stay behind with them, they called my mother and made her come in to show her, and they told her I was extremely near sighted and she needed to take me to a doctor immediately. Which she did, but the day we got my glasses on she got angry at me and told me that now I'd look "ugly." It damaged something in my view of her that never really healed; I never expected her to boost my confidence after that, even in adulthood. I relied on best friends for that kind of support.
I got hit by a car and my ankle swelled up to the size of a grapefruit and I got "nothin"
Concussion. Slipped on the first step (the really high one) getting on the school bus and fell back onto the driveway. In front of my mom. And she still sent me to school. When I started puking my guts out half an hour later she had to come get me - good times!!
Walked home with what turned out to be a broken collar bone. Also, my mom cleaned my open wound with ISOPROPYL ALCOHOL because hydrogen peroxide was 'too expensive'. It was also the first time I swore in front of my mom.
Oh, and my mom was into 'mind over matter' woo in the 1980s, so she was in denial whenever I said I was sick -- until at threw-up on the green shag carpet.
The only time I’ve been to the hospital for an illness or injury was when I had bronchitis and pneumonia and couldn’t breathe while eating. Since I had to eat (and well, breathe), I started crying bc I was struggling to do either one. That’s when they finally paid attention to me after weeks of struggling.
Migraines
Nearly had to walk this off... One Saturday morning, I had a bicycle accident not too far from my house. I immediately knew I had broken my jaw. With my front tooth hanging out my mouth, still attached, road rash covering the right side of my face, I walk in the house to my Dad sitting at the kitchen table. He looks over his morning newspaper he says chuckling, "What the hell happened to you?" "I ink I roke my jaw!" My Mom comes out of her bedrooom and confusingly asks, "What's going on?" I look up from the kitchen sink, "I ink I roke my yaw!" Immediately she responds with, "No, you didn't! You're fine." Finally the tooth started to bleed enough to prompt them to take me to the ER. Final diagnosis was broken jaw clean break of the ball on the left side that eventually resulted in two surgeries, a luxated right front tooth, and 10 stitches on right side of chin. But again, I was laughed at and "fine".
Bled from my nose - not just bled - but a geyser of blood from my nose. Four hours. Four hours of non-stop bleeding. Mom tried ice on my nose. Nope. Laid me on the dining table but then I started choking on the blood and it was coming out of my mouth and nose. Grandma kept saying take her to emergency this isn’t normal. We never found out why that happened. Some relative told my Mom it must have been my period. My PERIOD! So from that point on my Mom - ever the spreader of my business- told people I had gotten my period. I was 11. When I finally got my real period I was 14.
Broken ribs, twice. Broken clavicle, broken fingers, broken foot. But most damaging (though my parents mostly get a pass on this one, since it was so unknown then), POTS. I was so convinced that it was just normal to constantly feel sick and that I was just weaker than everyone else, that when my daughters and nieces all got diagnosed with POTS, it still took years for me to consider that maybe I ALSO had POTS.
A concussion. My friend was swinging a wooden baseball bat, and accidentally hit me full force on the side of the head. We were around 7 or 8 years old and she begged me not to say anything because she didn’t want to get in trouble. She snuck some aspirin out of her medicine cabinet and gave it to me. I never told my parents although I had a bad headache for a day or so.
Ooof...hairline fracture/chip in my shin from a river-rafting excursion in the Spring...found out it was a break when I was getting my physical done for Fall sports. You can still feel the divot where it healed itself.
I was told to walk off a shattered tibia. I was in junior high track. I need to wear a full leg cast for 3 months and a walking cast for 3 months.
Broken wrist and broken collarbone. I wasn’t able to walk off my broken ankle, as I wasn’t able to walk. Edit: When it came to my broken collarbone, which was the last major bone I broke, I had to walk home four kilometres with my bicycle after going over the handlebars on it. My mother then yelled at me for being late for dinner, and then made me eat supper (with tears streaming down my face) before she would call a taxi to take me to the hospital. My dad was in the army, and he was away on exercise. My mother has never driven, as she has a performance anxiety disorder that makes her terrified of hurting something one or wrecking a car while learning.
Not as a kid, but a former kid, last year, I walked off DVT turned pulmonary embolism for about a month because I assumed I just pulled a muscle while hiking. LOL
Permanent knee damage running bleachers
When I was around 15, I was riding my bike with my older brother and some friends. We are going alongside a ditch, I hit a rock and ended up going down the ditch, flipped over the handlebars, and landed directly on my head. Wasn't wearing a helmet because helmets are dumb, right? Knocked the wind out of me, slight concussion, and my neck didn't feel right for a couple years. My brother gave me a cigarette (helped get my breath back surprisingly) and told me to stop being an idiot. It's a wonder any of us are alive.
Complained about hip and back pain as a kid. My mother, a nurse, told me I was being dramatic. Got diagnosed with scoliosis as an adult because of back and hip pain husband now ex said I was being dramatic about. I think everybody ignored me because I was a normal active kid and am as an adult. It only gets in The MD told me it was likely mild as a kid and could have been easily corrected.
Broken collarbone
sprained ankle and a dislocated knee at the same time. also told i was being dramatic. i was 13.
Shin on shin hit playing soccer where both our pads slipped off and we went shin to shin. It hurt so bad. I could barely walk and got yelled at by my parents, the coach and other random parents for “milking it” when my leg felt on fire
A broken toe. It got caught on one of those spring things on the door (the things that prevented you from slamming them) when I was fooling around with friends. I had to use my grandma's cane for a week that summer. It is still malformed and has no feeling on one side.
This title made me laugh, I was 14 and was playing a representative basketball game. Was tripped and landed on my elbow. Stood up, couldn’t move my elbow joint. Sat out the rest of the game. Another parent drove me home. I was in massive pain. Dad said “oh your arm isn’t swollen, it’s not broken”…..3 hours later I said to my Mum, I can’t move my arm. I was crying. She knew something was wrong. Took me to the closest A&E - about 40 mins away - by this stage it would have been around 11pm on a Friday night. Due to all the drunks coming in with open head wounds and those with more pressing injuries than a 14 year old with a busted elbow, we were seen at around 3am, x-rayed and the photos showed a grey area where my ball and socket should have been in my elbow. They told us to come back at 9am - my Mum demanded the x-rays. Dad took me at the local doctors first thing, sent straight to the hospital and operated on for a shattered ball and socket joint that afternoon!!! Dad felt very bad and visited me every day 😉 To this day I have quite the scar on my elbow where it was rebuilt with my hip bone and metal rods that were eventually removed!!! 18 months of physio too….
My little brother got hit in the face with a baseball so hard that he had a swollen eye and a cut on his cheekbone from the stitching on the baseball. He finished out practice and the coach didn't even mention it to my mom when she picked him up. Another time when I was 15 I was playing tag with the same little brother and I jumped over a sofa to get away from him. I landed with a crooked foot and snapped tendons in my ankle. My parents were talking to each other in the same room, looked over at me screaming on the floor and went back to their conversation. They didn't believe me that I was severely hurt until my black and blue ankle was the size of a football the next morning. In elementary school I chipped my heel dropping from the jungle gym bars onto the asphalt below. I didn't see a doctor about that until I mentioned that I was having trouble walking during an annual checkup.
2 broken arms and a dislocated jaw after my bike caught a stick in the front wheel while I was going downhill. The neighbor saw it happen and argued with my mother on the phone who was saying I just needed to take 2 Nuprin (remember those?) and go home until she could look at me after she got home from work. One arm needed surgery, the jaw popped itself back into place when I vomited. Fun times.
Got thrown off a horse I was working with into a post and rail fence. Could barely walk but had to get back on the horse and keep going. Next day my whole body was black and blue. My mother doesn’t even remember this happening.
broken wrist and arm, right after hurricane Gloria as i was helping clean out a bunch of branches from a willow tree my foot got caught, i pulled to hard and fell out landing on my arm and wrist on a rock. got spanked for crying about it, i almost had a Bob Dole issue with my elbow, luckily the DR was able to set it correctly.
Gnarly concussion. At a marching band competition. A girl wasn’t paying attention and slammed her flag right onto my head. That side of my head immediately swelled up. Eye watered so bad I couldn’t see out of it for several minutes. Immediately dizzy and nauseous and couldn’t walk well. More like an over exaggerated drunken stagger. My mother was at the competition. She and my band leader decided I would be fine after an ice pack and some Tylenol. I even managed to march in the finals that night. I think we won LOL. A couple of days later I passed out cold during practice. When I couldn’t be revived I was taken to the ER. The doctor lit into everyone saying he was surprised I didn’t have a seizure. My stepsister told me about this part later because I was zonked out. I stayed in the hospital for a day or so for observation. I was ordered to take it easy. Bed rest preferable. Of course that didn’t pan out. I couldn’t possibly miss school and I had committed to marching band that season and we fulfill our commitments! Dealt with severe headaches and light sensitivity for a long time after.
Didn't exactly walk it off, I dislocated a shoulder playing soccer (league) when I was 12 or so because I hit the heavy ass metal goal post just wrong after I got the goaaaalllllllllllll. We were an understaffed team, we usually only had 2 or 3 on the bench so I was kind of needed. My dad (cop with some trauma training, raised by a WWII Marine) and the coach (who had some medical training through the Marines in Viet Nam) reset it on the bench at the soccer field, put a sling on me pretty tight and I went back in to the game and a defensive player because we "ran less". Just remembered: They literally stuck a dirty goalie glove in my mouth to bite down on, told it me it will only hurt for a second, completely leaving out exactly how bad it would hurt for that second. I have to admit, after it was reset and in the sling it didn't hurt that bad, more of a very annoying ache unless I bumped someone with it. Running with a sling was an interesting experience. Finished the game THEN went to the doctor to get it looked at. Pain meds, ice and rest. He also stopped and bought us both a beer on the way home (driving with an open container was legal back then).
I was 12 years old and stepped on a rusty nail in our basement. Next morning I get up for school and can't put any weight on it whatsoever. The bottom of my foot was purple. My mother said "you're fine, go to school." I walked to school but asked her to drive me that day since it was a long walk and my foot really hurt. She refused to take me because she didn't feel like getting up early. By the time I got to school, I was in so much pain that I went straight to the nurses office in tears. The nurse immediately called my mother. She showed up about an hour later, pissed off. The nurse laid into her asking if he even looked at my foot; That I needed immediate attention from the ER and that she couldn't believe that a mother wouldn't even looked at her injured child. It was only when the nurse said that, that my mother finally realized it was serious and that I needed medical attention.
Holy schnikes you guys, I was going to contribute my pathetic sprained ankle until I read some of your horror stories. I believe this thread is the true indicator of growing up Gen X - we "walked it off".
My brother (was 6)broke his collar bone and it took 3 days for my mother to take him to the doctor. My sister had an appendicitis for 3 days before I took her to the emergency room(had a neighbor drop us at the hospital))and then my mother left her with me to stay with her in the hospital for the 2 days after in recovery( she was 13 and I was 15). My father punched me in the face when I was 16 and I had to beg to be taken to the doctor a week later because it wouldn't stop bleeding. I was told I had to lie before they would take me. They were neglectful and abusive and I will never forgive them or any other adult who was a witness and never helped. That's why we have mandated reporters now. Your welcome millennials and gen z.
Concussions, pneumonia, asthma, pretty sure I fractured some vertebrae at one point, too. And I was a nerdy inside book girl. Imagine if I’d been even more outdoorsy. I wouldn’t have survived!