When I was a little kid, I was really into playing football. So my friends, my brother, with his bleach blonde hair, and I were playing catch with our official grade NFL football in the middle of the calm street. We just played out in front of my house, which is located in a quiet residential neighborhood. There were a couple of cars parked on the side of the road, so we had to make sure our passes were precise so we didn’t hit one of them.

“Go out for a pass, Trevor!” my friend yelled.

I replied with a short, “Ok.”

I bolted down the street as fast as I could. I imagined I was a wide receiver on the Oregon Ducks and their star quarter back, Dennis Dixon was about to throw me a touchdown pass for the winning game point against USC. All of a sudden, Dennis Dixon threw the ball to me as I was nearing the end zone. It was high, a little too high, so I pushed myself to run faster so I could get the touchdown and the glory. The ball was almost to me, but it was still a little too high, so I put my arms out and got ready to dive and catch it. The ball finally came into position , and I dove as the ball floated into my arms. I caught the ball, but I realized I was going to fall pretty hard, so I tucked the ball beneath my right arm and put my left arm out to break my fall. Instead of breaking my fall, I broke my arm…

A deafening pop from my arm was all I heard as a tremendous jolt of pain exploded in it. My arm felt as if someone hit my elbow with a sledge-hammer. I got up real quick and looked at my arm. It looked like a dry, broken twig, so I yelled at my friends, “My arm is broken!”

My friends looked at me dumbfounded for a second, and then ran over to come to my aid. They took me inside my house where my mom was getting ready to go out to dinner. Once she saw my arm, she canceled her plans to go out and rushed me to the hospital. My arm was broken right on my growth plate, which is not a good place to break it, and the doctor said that if it didn’t heal correctly, I could have to get surgery on my arm.

All this information made me pretty careful with my arm because I didn’t want surgery at all. Once I told my friends this, they made sure that I kept my splint on my arm so it would heal properly. They also didn’t do things I couldn’t do, like play football at lunch. Instead we would go inside the gym and play basketball. They also came to my house a lot to play Guitar Hero, which I got pretty good at it with my cast on. My cast was green and red stripes. It was pretty seasonal since it was Christmas time and all, but once it hit early March, I just felt ridiculous with it on.

This painful experience made me realize that true friends can help you with anything.