It was Labor Day weekend, in 2006, my mom, dad, brother, nana, and papa, were all up at their cabin. It was a small, one story cabin up in Greenville Michigan, on Cedar lake. I was five, and I had a huge imagination, sometimes it got so bad I would start acting them out, no matter where I was. I used to be a slim of a girl, 4 foot 8 inches, and stick thin, now I’m 5 foot 9 inches and very muscular. My family and I used to go up every summer for the 4th of July, and sometimes for Labor Day. Whenever we were up there, we go to the public beach about 2 miles away from the cabin, and we would ride our bikes there, and the road between them was dirt. This year, I had forgotten my bike at home, so I rode on the cross bar of my papa's bike, with my dad.

We were on our way back to the cabin from the beach, and we were about halfway there. My dad and I were quite a bit behind my brother. I remember I was imagining that we were in a cartoon, and we were too close to the mailboxes, and were getting hit over and over by them. At one point I had brought my right leg in too far and too quickly. My foot went right into the spokes of the front wheel of the bike, stopping us on a dime, and we flipped. I was laying on the ground with my leg going under the bike, and my foot twisted at an awkward angle, so that it was through the spokes and facing the sky, like a dead fish, belly up in the water. I remember screaming bloody murder. Looking back, it was probably my screaming that got me the help I needed, when I needed it.

The people in the house came out asking “What’s going on?” They saw the situation at hand and a few came straight to us, to ask “Are you okay?” The rest of the people went and got wire cutters and a cooler of ice, while my dad and I waited.

When they came back with the wire cutters, and cooler, they came to set me free from the bike. I remember them telling me that when they cut the spokes it was going  to hurt at first, but then it would feel better. So they got ready to cut the spokes, they stopped before cutting them, and asked “are you ready?” I wasn’t able to speak, in that moment I could only think, “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts,” so I did the only thing I could, I nodded my head. Quickly, they cut the spokes and shoved my foot and ankle into the cooler of ice.

I can’t remember how long we sat there for, but after a while, my grandparents, mom, and brother all came in the teal green, Pontiac van, that squealed in protest as you drove it. I can only remember tidbits of the rest of the day, I realise now that I don’t remember a lot from the drive and the hospital because they had given me morphine which gave me partial amnesia of that time. I remember getting my ankle wrapped, it was slow but very deliberate to show my parents how to do it, which felt as if it took hours. On our way home, we stopped by wendy’s and I got a chocolate frosty. That night, I had kicked dad out of his spot, and slept with mom. The rest of the weekend I didn't sleep very well, I would wake up constantly after I would turn my foot wrong and I'd feel the pain, it was like I was sleeping awake, it was one of the worst times of my life. Now that I've realized that one of the reasons the incident happened was because of me playing out my imagination, I no longer have such an imagination, I don’t act on it anymore like I used to.

Months after I was all healed and walking on both feet, a large hematoma formed on my right heal, it caused my foot to be an inch longer, so I couldn't put on any shoes. My dad took me to the hospital, because of it. I was on my knees facing the wall with my arms on the examination table. The doctor told me to turn around because I probably didn't want to see what he was doing. Boy was he wrong, I told him I was okay and watched him, he took a pair of scissors and sliced through the hematoma, I watched as he squeezed some of the puss out, then wiped it clean with a towel. I watched him repeat that process over and over till it was gone, all that was left was the extra dead skin from the hematoma. Maybe if the doctor had done it a different way, maybe, just maybe I wouldn’t have the type of scar that I have. I’d like to think that if I were to go back I would know exactly what house it happened in front of, that I could go back and thank the people from all those years ago for taking care of me before I was taken to the hospital. Looking back, I’m not sure that I properly thanked them, I wish I had. I wish I had gone back to that house, knocked on the door and said thank you. Humans go through something in their life, whether it be good, or bad. It’s how we handle the situation at hand that defines us.