I don't really have anything that interesting... broke my arm once...

Well, tell us about it! What if my character breaks an arm, and I don't know how to describe it, and my book stinks, all because you didn't post your story on here?!

Wouldn't want that!

Alright, well, I was at a playground and I decided to be an idiot and "surf" on a see-saw. Then, these kids that were playing were pushing eachother and one of them fell on a seat. So, I flew off the see-saw, landed on my right arm, crushed everything, and I had to get a cast. The end.

I've never been injured badly enough to go to a hospital, unless you count the nurses' office at camp.
But what happened? Did you black out? Did your arm feel like it was on fire? What? Come on!!!

It felt like I didn't *have* an arm! I couldn't move anything... and no, I didn't black out. It wasn't that hard of an impact.

Well no I didn't think so But some people black out from the pain.

Never heard of that before...

Really? Wow. Yeah it tends to happen with the worse breaks. I remember, about seven or eight years ago (man I'm old!!!), we used to have a skateboard ramp at our church. I think it was called a halfpipe. Anyway, all the guys would bring their boards (and helmets, and signed permission forms from their parents) and skate on it before and after youth group.
So anyway, my friend and I are on the swings on the playground, and all of a sudden a bunch of people run by. I asked my youth pastor what was going on as he rushed by me, and he said, "Zach broke his arm!" (Whoa, I just realized my character Zach has the same name as that guy...)
So we went over, all the people were standing way back to give him space. He was lying on the ground, blacked out, and my youth pastor's wife (a Navy corpsman [medic]) was over there with him. Then he woke up, and looked around without getting up, and the pain seemed to hit and... It didn't look fun, I'm surprised he didn't cry. The look on his face made ME want to cry...

Probably should have!!! Your brother seems quite accident-prone!
The look on his face, I didn't want to think too much about... Just imagine a guy in a LOT of pain.

I'm going to edit my "specialized edition" thread links into your first post, okay Aemi?

Oh, okay, that's fine.

I'm dealing with this (most likely) broken rib and it's been really interesting because I've never broken a bone before. (Seriously though, how lame to break a rib coughing.)

Here's how I look at it:

Normal person: Ugh, broken rib! Why me?
Writer: I could use this experience in my book! Now I can relate to my characters!

All in all, my misfortune is proving to be profitable.

~Calen

Well, tell us about it!
I'm sorry your rib is broken.

Hm, well, let's see...

How ever it is broken/fractured, I do not have pain breathing normally. It does hurt to yawn or breathe deeply, and cough. Lifting heavy things is painful as well as lying on my side.

When it initially broke, my rib was swollen. After a week, most of the swelling went down; there's a little left, but it's really minor. Since the swelling has come down, I was able to inspect my left rib and compare it to the right. Along my side is one rib that is protruding slightly. Along the front of my left side, where my ribs meet near the front of my abdomen, is the same problem bone and it pokes out more. My ribs aren't symmetrical (My injured one is sitting way lower than my right side) in the front. Since they are really messed up, I'll be asking my chiropractor what I should do about this on Monday.

Either I have a high pain tolerance (which I've been told I have) or it's not as bad as it feels. I am still functional; although, I'm a little limited in doing things and sleeping isn't as peaceful.

So, here's some info you can use for a character with a broken rib. Keep in mind, everyone deals with pain differently and broken ribs can have levels of damage. I'd say mine is more minor, but then again, I haven't had an x-ray.

~Calen

I have a cool story for y'all. I think I'll just put the whole thing in a spoiler, to make things easy... Warning, it's bloody.
My brother was using a vegetable slicing "harp" thing (at least my mom calls it a slicing harp... *shrug*), and didn't realize how sharp it was. He sliced part of the tip of his finger clean off, almost down to the bone. (And we never found the part that got cut off! )
Of course, I was the official nurse.
So anyway, I took the pressure off of it and the blood started pouring out, not in a stream, but a pretty steady drip. It didn't slow down, so I had to put on a tourniquet to slow the blood down, so I could check it out more thoroughly (I wrapped dental floss tightly around his finger just below the smallest knuckle). The blood didn't want to slow down so I wrapped it up tightly with gauze and bandages.
A couple hours later, we unwrapped it. The gauze stuck to the wound a bit, but not too much because it was still bleeding; I re-wrapped it and then checked on it the next day.
When I took off the bandages, the gauze was stuck to the wound pretty bad; we had to soak it and then basically rip it off, which started it bleeding again. I tied on a tourniquet and made my brother hold his hand up above his heart for a while to slow down the blood flow. We also ran cold water on it for a long time, which helped the blood to slow down and clot.
After about an hour, it clotted enough so that I could take the tourniquet off and it didn't bleed. By the next morning it was scabbed. Of course, it's his right index finger, so it's hard to keep out of the way, especially since he's right-handed. So ke keeps accidentally hitting it and breaking the scab, but it doesn't bleed much when that happens. It's just painful.
It hurt him, but I was proud; he didn't cry. He grunted like a man.

Wow.

Is it noticeable (aside from the scab) now that it is sort of healed? Because you said that it actually cut off a chunk of flesh, it made me wonder.