Broken

My son broke his right hand last Friday. He punched somebody in the face. A friend and teammate, no less. I was in the parking lot, asleep in my car, waiting for his soccer practice to end when he woke me up to tell me that the coach wanted to talk to me. I wasn't shocked, but surprised to learn of the incident. 

A couple days later the swelling in his hand hadn’t gone down so a visit to the ER was required. The diagnosis revealed a “closed nondisplaced fracture of neck of third metacarpal bone of right hand”. Quite a neat way to describe a broken bone. The fracture was hard to spot on the X Ray, but there it was regardless. We wouldn’t have known otherwise, but the swelling in his hand was a clear indication that something was wrong and parts of his palm were purple. Not only that. His hand was in pain, which is to say that he was in pain. A tiny, barely noticeable fracture was the root of all the symptoms manifesting in his right hand.

Interestingly, my son fought this visit to the ER quite emphatically. “I’m fine. I don’t need to go to the doctor! I’m fine!”, he repeated opening and clenching his fist to prove it. Proving it only went so far as my gently pressing his hand to see where it hurt the most. Ouch! Fine he was not.

At the end of the ER visit my son’s hand was in a splint. A day later and after a visit to the bone doctor, in a hard cast. He'll be carrying the extra weight for four weeks. The cast is not part of him, but without it he would not be well. He still claims he didn’t need any of it. The ER visit or the splint or the cast. He was fine. Funny kid. I can’t help to think that somewhere in there lies the story of humanity. Should I say a *broken* humanity?