Hallway

Can you tell who is who?

Lola’s Story

This all started when I decided to treat myself to a live rock concert after months of saving up and working overtime as a mechanic. I love death punk, and this band was one of my favorites, so there was no way I was going to miss it. The venue was packed, the kind of packed where you feel like a sardine in a can. I knew it was going to be a great night.

The band was killing it, and the crowd was going wild, jumping, pushing, the whole deal. But then, it happened. Someone near the front tripped, and like a ripple effect, people started falling over each other. What started as an energetic mosh pit turned into a full-on stampede.

I was trying to move out of the way, but the crowd was so tight that I barely had room to breathe, let alone escape. Someone shoved me from behind, and I lost my balance. I fell, landing hard on the ground. Before I could even process what was happening, a boot came down on my leg, right on my shin.

I heard a sickening crack and felt a pain so sharp it took my breath away. I screamed, but the music was so loud, I doubt anyone heard me. The pain radiated up my entire leg, and I could feel my bones shifting unnaturally under my skin. I was in shock, frozen in place, as people stumbled over me to get away from the chaos.

I tried to get up, to push myself out of the way, but before I could move, someone else stepped on my outstretched leg again. This time, I could feel my leg snap in half and my leg was bent mid shin inside my long boot as if there was a joint there. I could feel the pain spreading up to my knee. It was a deep, crushing sensation, like my leg was being flattened.

I tried to protect my leg, but the crowd was so packed that there was nowhere to go. Another person stepped directly on my ankle. The weight of their body forced my foot into an awkward angle, and I felt my ankle stretched to it limit.   The pain was white-hot, and I could feel tears streaming down my face, but I couldn’t even wipe them away. Then a snap and the ankle gave way which was followed by a few more snaps.

The worst one, though, was when someone wearing heavy boots stomped on my knee. This time, I heard the knee cap snap. It wasn’t just a sound, I felt it. It was like my leg gave out from the inside, and the sharp, stabbing pain was so intense that I almost blacked out. I just lay there, clutching my leg, completely helpless.

Somehow, security finally got things under control, and medics reached me. They had to carefully carry me out of the crowd, and let me tell you, every little movement made me want to pass out. The apologised as they straightened my leg.  That was not a nice feeling as a symphony started playing inside my whole leg. As they cut off my boot, I saw that my leg was swollen in various places like my knee ankle and on my shin.  Each swollen site is angry with a red and purple hue as the bruise started to set in. I couldn’t even look at it without feeling queasy.

Fast forward to the ER, where they confirmed what I already knew, my tibia and fibula were broken mid-shaft.  The knee is also cracked in more than one way.  My ankle was worse as it was broken and dislocated. The doctor said he could perform a manual reduction on the bones and see if I could avoid surgery, but that didn’t make it any less horrifying. 

I was wheeled into the castroom where they first gave me some painkillers. The doctor started with my knee, which was both broken and dislocated. He warned me that this would hurt, and then he and another nurse grabbed my leg. One of them held my thigh steady while the other gripped my lower leg and gently, but firmly, started twisting and pulling. The painkillers they gave me were a joke! I swear, the moment he pulled, I felt the broken ends of my bones grinding against each other inside my leg. The pain was so intense that I bit down on my lip to keep from screaming. My knee felt like someone poured hot lead over it as they pushed and shifted it back into alignment. When they finally got it into place, there was this satisfying pop as the joint reset. It was equal parts relief and agony.

Next up was my tibia and fibula. These were broken mid-shaft, and the doctor explained that they needed to be aligned perfectly so they could heal properly. He pressed down on my shin with his hands, feeling for the fractures, and then started pulling again. This was worse than the knee. WAY worse. As he pulled and twisted, I could feel the jagged edges of the broken bones sliding into place. It was like a dull, grinding pain mixed with sharp, stabbing sensations. I asked for more painkillers but the doctor said they already gave me the maximum dose. I gripped the sides of the bed so hard that my fingers went numb. The nurse kept telling me to breathe, but honestly, I don’t think that worked one bit.

Finally, they got to my ankle. It was broken and the bones weren’t where they were supposed to be. The doctor grabbed my foot and started twisting it back into position. At one point, I felt a deep click, and my whole leg spasmed from the shock. I thought the pain couldn’t get worse, but then he pressed on my foot to make sure everything was aligned. That was the moment I almost blacked out.

When they were finally done resetting everything, I was shaking like a leaf. The nurse asked me what color cast I wanted, which felt like a weirdly casual question after all that torture. I went with black because, I mean, it’s sleek, matches everything, and fits my whole punk vibe.

They started wrapping my leg in padding and then applied the fiberglass for the cast. It started at the top of my thigh, went all the way down to my toes, and completely locked my knee and ankle in place. The whole process took forever, and the cast felt stiff, but at least the pain started to dull once everything was immobilized.

After the nightmare of having my leg manually reduced, you’d think the hospital staff would cut me some slack. Nope. Instead, the doctor handed me a pair of crutches, and told me I was good to go.

I was just sitting there on the hospital bed, staring at him like, Are you serious right now? My whole leg from knee to ankle are all completely wrecked.  The leg is in pieces and trapped in this heavy cast that made it felt like dead weight. I couldn’t believe they expected me to just hop out of here like nothing happened.

So I asked, “Can I at least get a wheelchair or something? I don’t think I can do this on crutches.”

The doctor smiled like he’d heard that a thousand times before and said, “It’s either the crutches or nothing. You’ll be fine. Just take it slow. If it hurts, take an ibuprofen.” Take it slow? My leg feels like it’s been through a meat grinder, and he’s acting like I’m just taking a casual stroll in the park.

The nurse handed me the crutches and gave me a quick tutorial on how to use them. I was already starting to panic because just shifting my leg slightly sent sharp, stabbing pain through my whole body. But they were dead serious about me leaving on these stupid sticks, so I had no choice but to try.

I swung my good leg over the edge of the bed and tried to ease my casted leg down. The moment my leg shifted even slightly, blood rushed to the fracture sites, and the pain was unreal. It felt like my leg was being stomped on all over again, and I actually yelped. The nurse gave me a sympathetic look and helped support my cast as I slowly slid to the floor.

Standing was a whole new level of torture. The pressure from standing upright made the pain spike so badly that I thought I was going to puke. My hands were shaking as I gripped the crutches, trying to keep weight off my broken leg while I stood there, frozen, trying not to cry.

The nurse must have noticed my I want to die face because she offered to call me an Uber, which was probably the nicest thing anyone had done for me all day. I nodded, still too focused on not collapsing to say much.

I took the tiniest little step with the crutches, trying to keep my casted leg as still as possible. Even that tiny movement sent a jolt of pain through my knee and shin, but I kept going because the idea of staying in that hospital for another second was worse. Each step was an awkward shuffle, and I finally hobbled to the exit of the cast room. My arms were already sore from holding myself up on the crutches, and I still had to make it all the way to the front entrance.

I was hobbling out of the cast room, taking the tiniest steps possible because, let’s be real, moving with a broken leg locked in a full leg cast is a nightmare. Every time I shifted my weight, I could feel the blood rushing to my fractures, sending fresh waves of pain through my entire leg. As I made my slow, painful exit, something caught my eye down the corridor. At first, I thought I was imagining it because I was so focused on my own misery, but it was real.

There was a girl in a hospital bed in the hallway, and she was… wow. She was completely covered in casts. Both of her arms were in casts that went from her armpit to the root of her fingers, suspended above her by slings attached to a metal frame over her bed. Her legs were encased in these huge casts that started at the bottom of her chest and went all the way down to her toes. I’m not a doctor, but it looked like her entire lower body was immobile.

She was just lying there, her arms and legs dangling from the slings like some kind of hospital puppet. And to make things even more awkward, she wasn’t wearing anything but a vest and underwear! I can’t even imagine how embarrassing that must’ve been for her, just lying there in the middle of a busy hospital corridor while people walked by, staring.

For a second, I stopped hobbling and just stared at her. It wasn’t out of pity, though. It was this weird, almost smug feeling. Here I was, struggling with my one leg in a cast, and there she was, completely immobilized, unable to move anything. If I thought I had it bad, she had it a thousand times worse.

I couldn’t help but smile a little, which sounds awful, but it was such a strange moment. I felt this wave of relief and gratitude that I wasn’t in her situation. Sure, my leg was badly broken, but at least I could still use my arms. At least I could move around, even if it was slow and painful.

She must’ve noticed me staring because our eyes met for a second. I quickly looked away and hobbled past her, feeling a tiny pang of guilt for being so satisfied with my own situation. But honestly? It was oddly comforting to know that, as bad as things were for me, someone else definitely had it worse.

Emily’s story

(Please excuse my typo as I am only typing this out on my phone with my left hand only.)

It was just supposed to be another boring day at the office. I was catching up on paperwork, and I needed a file from the top shelf of this ancient, overstuffed file cabinet in the back room. You know, the kind that’s probably been around since the 80s and is way too heavy for its own good. There in the back room stuffed all sorts of useless office junk like the old safe on top of the cabinet where the boss said it is a waste to throw away. Then there are years of files in heavy metal boxes for safe keeping.

I took out one of the rusty metal box as a step to the file. As I stretched up to grab the file while using the metal boxes as a foot stool, I felt the metal box shift underneath me. Before I could even react, I lost my balance. The fall happened so fast that I didn’t even have time to brace myself. I landed hard on my right arm, and the pain was immediate and blinding. The moment I hit the ground, I felt this snap in my upper arm. It was like someone had taken a crowbar to my arm. The pain shot through my entire arm, radiating up to my shoulder and down to my elbow. It was sharp, searing, and all-consuming. As I lay there with my arm stretched out from my body, I tried to move, but my arm refused to cooperate. It just lays there limp and useless.

But the nightmare didn’t stop there. As I lay on the ground with my broken arm and trying not to scream, I noticed the file cabinet wobbling. It was like something out of a horror movie. The thing tipped forward, and before I could even process what was happening, the safe on top came crashing down on me.

The edge of the heavy safe slammed into my elbow joint. The crush was audible. The pain was deep and throbbing, with this horrible grinding sensation as my elbow shattered. I could feel the bones grinding against each other as the safe settled on my arm.

Then, the cabinet followed.  It landed directly on my right arm. The weight of it was unreal, and the pain was unlike anything I’d ever felt. I felt the bones in my wrist snap under the pressure. It was a sharp, grinding pain that made my stomach churn. My fingers twitched involuntarily, and I remember thinking, This can’t be real.

The whole thing lasted only a few seconds, but it felt like an eternity. By the time my coworkers rushed in and managed to lift the safe and cabinet off me, my arm was a swollen, mangled mess. I tried to move my fingers but they did not respond. The pain was too much and without a warning, I passed out.

When I got to the hospital, they rushed me to X-ray, and the radiologist started snapping pics of my arm from every angle. The tech didn’t say much, but the look on their face told me everything I needed to know: my arm was a complete disaster zone.

The doctor came in not long after and broke (no pun intended) the news to me. I have a spiral fracture right through the middle of my upper arm. Apparently, when I fell, the twisting motion of my arm caused the bone to break in this corkscrew-like pattern. The doctor explained that spiral fractures are notoriously painful and tricky to fix because the jagged ends of the bone don’t line up easily.

Then he moved down my arm, both bones in my forearm were broken in two places. One fracture was near the elbow, where the heavy safe was dropped on me, shattering the bones into uneven pieces. The other was just below my wrist, where the weight of the cabinet crushed down and snapped the bones like twigs. My forearm was completely out of alignment. The doctor said if the fractures weren’t fixed properly, I might lose mobility in my arm permanently.

I was already freaking out, but then the doctor dropped the bomb: they’d have to manually reduce all the fractures before they could cast it. If you’ve never had a bone reduced, let me just say, YOU ARE LUCKY!

I was quickly wheeled to the cast room where the doctor started with my humerus, which was broken in the middle of my upper arm. He explained that they needed to realign the jagged, twisted ends of the bone so they could heal properly. I was already sweating before they even started.

They gave me some painkillers and a local anesthetic.  They told me I would be awake but don’t feel anything. (They lied!) The doctor grabbed my upper arm with one hand and my elbow with the other, then started pulling. I could feel the broken ends of the bone grinding against each other as he twisted and manipulated my arm. The pain was sharp and deep, radiating all the way up to my shoulder. I was swearing so much that I still find it embarrassing. At one point, I thought I was going to pass out, but the nurse kept telling me to breathe.

After what felt like an eternity (but was probably only a few minutes), the doctor finally got the bone aligned. The relief was immediate but short-lived because we still had to deal with my forearm.

Next up was the fracture near my elbow. This was a bad one. Both the radius and ulna were shattered into uneven pieces, and the displacement made my elbow look like it belonged in a horror movie. The doctor warned me this part was going to hurt, which was the understatement of the century.

He started by stabilizing my upper arm, then grabbed my forearm just below the break. He pulled and twisted, trying to align the jagged pieces of bone. The grinding sensation was horrifying! I could feel the broken fragments scraping against each other. The pain was this deep, throbbing ache mixed with sharp, stabbing shocks every time he adjusted my arm. My elbow felt like it was being torn apart all over again.  After much swearing on my part, the doctor told me he was done.  Thinking it was over, I was relieved but the doctor continued down my arm

He got to the breaks near my wrist. These were clean fractures, but were badly shifted out of place. The doctor had to pull my hand and wrist in opposite directions to get the bones back in alignment. I can’t even describe the pain, just magine someone ripping your arm apart from the inside. My fingers twitched uncontrollably as he worked, and I swear, I could hear the bones snapping back into place.

Once the reduction was done, I thought the worst was over. Nope. The doctor said that because of the severity of my injuries, they needed to immobilize my entire arm and shoulder to make sure everything healed correctly. That’s how I ended up in a shoulder spica cast.

The cast started at my chest, wrapping tightly around my upper torso, and extended all the way down my arm to my fingertips. My shoulder was locked in place, and my elbow was bent at a 90-degree angle. The cast even covered my thumb, leaving only my fingers free to wiggle. It felt like my entire upper body was encased in concrete.

While the nurse was wrapping me up in cast padding, she asked me if I wanted to pick a color. At first, I thought she was joking, like, I’m in the worst pain of my life, and you want me to think about color coordination? But then I figured, why not? If I’m going to be stuck in this thing for months, it might as well look decent. I went with pink because, hey, if I’m going to suffer, at least I’ll suffer fabulously.

After the cast was finished, I was kept in the hospital for observation overnight. Early in the morning, the doctor came and signed my release papers. He reminded me to do the finger exercises to keep the swelling down before turning to leave the room. The nurse helped me call an Uber and had me wait in the hallway for my ride home.

I was sitting in the hospital hallway with my giant pink shoulder spica cast, waiting for my ride home after the most painful experience of my life. My entire right arm was completely locked up in this monstrosity of a cast that started at my chest, wrapped around my torso, and extended down past my elbow to my knuckles. I felt like a walking billboard for orthopedic disasters.

I was already feeling pretty sorry for myself. My arm was throbbing, the weight of the cast was pulling on my shoulder as I tried to sit straight, and I was trying to figure out how I was even going to get into the car without looking like a total idiot. That’s when she rolled in.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a hospital bed being wheeled up nearby. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but then I turned to get a better look, and holy crap. This girl was in the most insane cast setup I’ve ever seen.

Both of her arms were in long arm casts that stretched from her armpits to her knuckles. They were hanging in slings from a metal frame above her bed, completely immobilized. And then there was her leg situation. She was in this absolutely massive cast that started at the bottom of her chest and went all the way down to her toes. It was a double hip spica cast (yes, I Googled it later) and her legs were also suspended in slings, hanging up at an angle from the frame. She was strapped in this bed, completely immobilized, unable to move a single limb.

I just sat there, staring in awe. It was like something out of a medical drama, except it was real.

For a split second, this weird thought popped into my head: Wow, I thought my pink shoulder spica was bad, but this girl was in a full-body plaster prison. I even felt this tiny twinge of jealousy, which is ridiculous, but I couldn’t help it. Her setup was so extreme that it made my situation seem almost normal in comparison.

But then I realized I was actually very lucky. Sure, my arm is locked up in a giant cast, and I couldn’t use it for anything, but at least I could wiggle my fingers. I could still walk. I could move my other arm, sit up, and function somewhat like a human being. This poor girl couldn’t do anything on her own. She was completely dependent on other people for everything.

As I kept staring, I couldn’t help but smile a little. Not because I thought her situation was funny but because it put my own misery into perspective. Yeah, my arm was a mess, and my life was going to suck for the next few months, but it could’ve been so much worse.

Eventually, the nurse who was wheeling her bed came back.  She noticed me and gave me this polite, awkward smile, like, Yeah, she’s got it rough. I nodded back and looked away, trying not to make her or the girl feel even more uncomfortable. But man, that image is burned into my brain

I was really lucky, I was.

Emily’s story

(Please read the whole story and give me some advice. I typed this whole story with the only fingers that I can move for now.)

My life pretty much flipped upside down last week. I was walking home from school, headphones in, completely zoning out as I strolled along the sidewalk. It was just a normal afternoon, until it wasn’t.

Out of nowhere, I heard tires screeching. When the SUV jumped the curb, I barely had a second to process what was happening. One moment I was walking home, headphones in, thinking about my next college assignment, and the next, I was staring at a massive vehicle speeding straight toward me. Time seemed to slow down as the SUV closed the distance in a heartbeat.

The first thing I felt was the sheer force of the impact as the front of the SUV slammed into my hip. It was like being hit by a freight train. The pain was instant and blinding, radiating from both of my thighs and hips. I didn’t just feel the bones in my legs snapping! I heard it too, a sickening crack that seemed to echo in my ears.

My hips felt like they had exploded, sending shockwaves of agony through my torso. The pain was sharp and deep, as if my pelvis had been crushed into jagged pieces that were now grinding against one another with every slight movement. The force of the impact sent me flying, and for a brief moment, I was weightless, my body suspended midair.

When I hit the ground a few feet away, the jolt sent another wave of pain through my shattered hips and thighs as I rolled. I gasped, struggling to breathe, my chest heaving as shock began to set in. My legs were completely limp, and my body refused to move. There was no mistaking it, both my thighs were broken. They felt heavy and dead, like they no longer belonged to me. Every slight shift, every tiny vibration in the ground, sent fresh waves of pain shooting through my thighs.

The pain in my hips was different, it was deeper, more unsettling. It felt as if my entire lower body had become unstable, almost hollow, as if the structure that held me up had collapsed. I couldn’t move my legs at all, and the helplessness was terrifying.

As I lay there, trying to process the agony and the shock, the SUV continued to move toward me. I panicked but my body was frozen, unable to do anything but watch in horror. My mind screamed at me to roll out of the way, but my shattered legs refused to respond. I braced myself for what was coming next, the terror mixing with the physical agony in a way that made me feel like I was drowning. A horrifying idea stood out, “This is it. This is how it ends.”

The SUV’s front tires rolled closer, I could only watch in horror as the front tire reached my right arm, pinning it to the asphalt. The moment the tire made contact, it felt like my arm was caught in a crushing press. The pain was immediate and overwhelming. The bones in my forearm gave way under the immense pressure, snapping with a brutal crack. I could feel my stomach churn. It wasn’t just the break, it was the sensation of the flesh being compressed, the muscles tearing, and the nerves screaming in protest all at once.

As the tire continued to roll forward, it shifted to my left arm. The pain mirrored the agony in the right arm, doubling the intensity. I could feel every inch of my bones being crushed, the fractures splintering through my arms like a chain reaction. My fingers twitched involuntarily, a reflexive spasm as the nerves in my hands responded to the trauma.

But the SUV didn’t stop. The front tires had only rolled over my arms, I was gasping for breath, my screams muffled by the intensity of the pain. The rear tires came next. I tried to brace myself instinctively, though there was nothing I could do to stop what was coming.

As the rear tire made contact with my right leg, I could feel my shin buckle under the weight. It was a grinding, splintering sensation, as if the bones were being pulverized into fragments. The pain was so deep and visceral that it felt like my entire leg was on fire.

As the tire continued to roll, it shifted to my left leg. The pressure was the same. My left leg gave way just as my right. The sensation was a chaotic mix of sharp, stabbing pain from the fractures and a dull, throbbing ache from the sheer weight of the vehicle compressing her muscles and tissues.

Each split second felt like an eternity as the SUV completed its path. By the time the tires rolled off my legs, I felt a rush of adrenaline in my body, I seemed to feel fine.  I looked up at my arms then down to my legs. I remembered joking to myself saying they were completely destroyed. I tried to move but they were unresponsive. It was almost numbing as I told myself at least it was not my head that got run over.

The SUV finally came to a stop a few feet away. I was lying there, gasping for air, as people were gathering around me.  I wanted to tell them I was fine and that I was just bruised but a bystanders stopped me from moving saying that I was hurt really badly. 

Just as suddenly as my euphoria came, the pain came back. As consciousness began to fade, the last thing I remembered was the faint sound of sirens in the distance and a bystander asking me to stay with them.

When I woke up, I was in the hospital. The first thing I noticed was my arms. They were dangling in slings above me in these huge, heavy casts. Both of them. I tried to sit up, but I couldn’t. That’s when I realized I was in this massive cast that started at my chest and went all the way down to the base of my toes. It felt like I was encased in concrete.

The doctor came in and explained the damage. Both of my radius and ulna were shattered. My hips were fractured. Both of my femurs had snapped clean in half. And my tibia and fibula were crushed in multiple places. He said they’d reduced all the fractures for now, but my recovery wasn’t going to be simple.

He gave me two options: surgery to piece together the broken bones with plates and screws, or a conservative route, meaning having the limbs in casts for an extended period of time. The surgery option would give me a better chance at regaining some functions to my limbs earlier but I might lose my limbs due to complications.  On the other hand, the casting option would mean spending up to 18 months if not 2 years on strict bed rest, which might result in severe atrophy to my limbs and I would definitly have limited mobility after such prolong casting. Neither option sounded great, as either way, I would end up with some form of lasting disability after I am all 'healed up'.

But I’d have to decide soon.

Before the doctor left, he ordered another round of X-rays to make sure the reductions were stable. The nurse wheeled me out of the room. They parked me in the hallway outside the X-ray room to wait for my turn as the nurse went to the nurse station to pick up some papers.  That’s when it hit me—I’m basically in my underwear. The hospital staff had stripped me down and the only thing that would fit after I got the casts was a tank top and my underwear. So there I was, lying in the middle of a busy hospital corridor, exposed for the world to see. My face turned bright red as people passed by, shooting quick glances at me.

I tried to shrink into the bed, but being wrapped in a giant immobilizing cast doesn’t really let you "disappear." My arms and legs were hanging in mid-air, making me feel even more like an awkward spectacle.

As I lay there, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, I spotted a girl sitting on a bench across the hallway. Her right arm was in this bright pink shoulder spica cast that locked her torso in place and extended down to her hand. She was staring at me, wide-eyed, and I couldn’t blame her. I looked like something out of a medical horror show. But somehow, she was no better in that huge cast of hers.

I started to feel even more self-conscious. My toes were swollen and bruised, completely visible at the ends of my leg cast. I couldn’t even cross my arms or pull a blanket up to cover myself because my arms were stuck in the slings. I felt so exposed, so helpless, and honestly, so embarrassed.

Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw another girl coming out of the cast room. She was hobbling on crutches.  It looked like she was in a lot of pain as she rested with every step she took.  Her left leg wrapped in a sleek black fiberglass cast that went from her thigh to her toes. She looked so mobile compared to me, and for a moment, I felt a weird pang of envy. At least she could move. Meanwhile, I was stuck in this bed, completely immobilized and utterly dependent on everyone around me.

I couldn’t help but wonder if I’d ever get to walking around again, even if it was with crutches. The thought of spending months like this, unable to move, was overwhelming. I tried to take a deep breath, but the weight of the cast on my chest made even that feel like a chore.

I glanced back at my swollen toes peeking out of my casts and tried to hold back tears. The decision about surgery weighed heavily on me. Would I ever be able to have a normal life again? Or was I going to be stuck in bed for the next year and a half? I keep replaying the doctor’s words in my head. “You’ll need a lifetime of physical therapy either way.” I stare at my toes sticking out of the cast, swollen and bruised, and I can’t help but wonder if they’ll ever work properly again.

The nurse came back to continue our journey to radiology.

I try to imagine myself walking again, or even just sitting up without help, and honestly, it feels impossible. I’m so overwhelmed. Choosing surgery feels like I am gambling for faster recovery, but risking my limbs. Choosing the cast feels like I am giving up on ever having a normal life again.

And while I’m lying here, trying to make this impossible decision, I can’t help but notice how people are living their lives around me. Earlier, I saw a girl walk out of the cast room on crutches with her leg in a sleek black fiberglass cast. And then there was the lady across the hallway in her pink shoulder spica cast. Both of them were injured, sure, but they could move. They could do things. I’m jealous in a way that makes me hate myself.

The nurse is nice enough to install a stand which holds the phone next to my fingers so that I could at least get online.

I don’t know. I’m scared. No matter what I choose, my life is never going to be the same. Surgery or the cast—both feel like losing battles.

What should I do?