Amy, for some reason that makes me think of a guy I dated who at age 8 or so had a collision in a soccer game, and the other guy's tooth got knocked out, and everyone was fussing around him and his lost tooth, except the tooth? Was in my ex's forehead, but no one was paying him any mind.

That's probably way funnier to me than it was meant to be, but there's a reason I don't date much.

Tell Dan. Tell him you're fine, but TELL HIM. (Speaking as someone who is trying to learn to tell her loved ones when something is wrong. Ahem.)

Yeah, that was the right call. Especially when you start the conversation with, "I am really okay." Start with the best.

However we didn't tell my sister that dad fell and was in the ICU and had a brain tumor until she got home. She could do nothing to get home even a minute faster and she's just have freaked out and made herself unsafe.

So, sometimes the truth immediately is good. Sometimes you wait because it'll just cause pain and there's no good to be gained.

Mostly every broken bone I've ever had was treated the next day. Jaw, wrist, foot, other foot, first foot again. Things that have gone immediately to be checked weren't broken bones. Odd. I do NOT rec waiting with a broken jaw. The rest were doable but that was a bad idea.

Yeah, I told him to step away, and that he was not to freak, stress or worry: I am a-ok.

And he agreed that he would have been pissed. So, thanks all!

dude typing onehanded sucks ASS.

I really, truly did not think it was broken.

What I learned in first aid was to suspect a broken bone if there is an obvious injury without concomitant pain.

I am charmed to know that medical science has an acronym for Erin's injury. She suffered a FOOSH (Fall On Outstretched Hand), breaking the radius, the most commonly broken bone in the body. (If only I had known this a few weeks ago, when a question at Trivia was "What is the most commonly broken bone?") Here's more about the exciting world of distal radius fractures [link]

Cortical buckling seems to be when a bone bends but doesn't break, but the medical jargon became impenetrable.

eta: When I broke my hand on a Saturday, the ER doc said I should wait until Monday and see someone who specialized in hand injuries.

Erin, OUCH! I hope he tells ex a fabulous superhero version of the injury. Do you have voice recognition software to help with the typing perhaps?

She suffered a FOOSH (Fall On Outstretched Hand), breaking the radius, the most commonly broken bone in the body.

Oh, that's definitely cooler. You had a FOOSH, Erin.

Sounds more POSH to say you have a FOOSH (what? They kinda rhyme)

I'm at moms. Installed a pur water filter. Trying not to be judgemental of all the crap. It's a gorgeous day, and she's got no windows open. Smells like old boxes.

Erin, that's the same break I had! And I did the same as you (sorta)---drove home from curling, took an old Vicodin, went to work in the morning, and THEN went to the ER (it was close to work, and I didn't want to go in the middle of the night and be bored and tired and hungry). The cast wasn't too bad and came off in five weeks. But for a few weeks after that I was oddly frightened to use my arm/hand much because now there was no strong cast holding it!

(middle of the night is totally the best time to go, if it's a level 1 trauma facility, I swear)

Several of my more major injuries happened during periods of extreme stress. I don't know whether stress makes me more clumsy, or if it's my body giving me something else to focus on. In an essay in a book on the other side of the house, Jean Kerr talks about reacting to negative reviews. After one of her plays was panned, she injured her toe and it got infected. It required frequent soakings and bandaging, and she realized it was a substitute for what she really wanted to do, which was soak her head.