Yeah, So About My Wrist . . .

      This week was by far the strangest I've had out on my mission. Yeah, so I broke my wrist on Monday. So, me and Elder Stewart were biking to what would have been my first nonmember lesson ever. Unfortunately,  we never got there because while we were biking, there was one point where we were on the sidewalk and I was trying to go from the sidewalk and use the driveway to get onto the road. Well what actually happened is as we neared the driveway, I checked over my shoulder to make sure there weren't any cars coming and as I did this I ended up veering off of the sidewalk. Unfortunately, there wasn't any grass off the side of the sidewalk just a hole. So I veered off the sidewalk into this hole and then immediately hit the driveway, because it was level with the sidewalk - not the hole, and went over the top of the handlebars. As I was in the air I was thinking, hmm here we go again. (I did basically the exact same thing mountain biking a couple weeks ago.) 

     I ended up catching myself with my wrists, and as soon as I landed, I knew I had broken my wrist. I landed on my belly, well really my wrists, but I was on my belly and I rolled over onto my back in a lot of pain. I realized I had no idea where I was, so I started rolling over to make sure I wasn't lying in the street. I still don't where I landed, but I do know that I wasn't run over by a car, so I think that's a win. Luckily, a biker saw my fall and was by my side within a minute and then after about 3 minutes had passed, there was about 7 people around me, including 3 doctors. 

     They made sure that my head, neck, and spine were all good, which they were, the only place I had any pain was my wrist. So I was moved to the seat of somebody's car and we waited for a couple minutes before some other missionaries, who have a car, came to take me to Urgent Care. Side note, since I can't bike anymore, we did end up getting a car which it seems like we actually weren't before I broke my wrist, so it just goes to show that when you really want something, just take matters into your own hands, or wrists. Anyway, I was actually in a really good mood and when the missionaries showed up I was smiling and I waved at them. I was then given a priesthood blessing in that car before hopping in the missionaries' car and going to Urgent Care. The car ride was like 15 minutes and I was actually in a LOT of pain. Eventually we got there and after we did it was quite the fun night. I was smiling and laughing all night. Low key, it's one of the best nights I've had as a missionary and trust me I've had some pretty fun nights. We just got to talk and joke around for about 3 hours. 

     At like 10pm that night, the Urgent Care doctor gave me a choice. Option 1 was that we could do the surgery that night. The problem with that is that he was a spine specialist. So he does surgeries, but it would be the first time he would be doing surgery on a wrist. Option 2, I could wait until the next day and they would schedule a surgery for 8am with a hand specialist. The problem with that option is that there was a good chance that I would permanently lose all of the feeling and movement in my fingers overnight. I ended up going with option 2 and waited until the next morning to have surgery. Only I didn't have the surgery the next day because Mission Medical something or other got involved. Which since I didn't lose my fingers that night there wasn't any real risk going forward of losing them by waiting further. So Mission Medical something wanted to evaluate the best course of action going forward including trying to send me home. Luckily, because me, my parents, and my mission president tried to keep me out in Utah they let me stay and have the surgery here. 

     So on Thursday, me and my companion show up at the Surgery Center. While we were in a waiting room some lady says to us, "what are you guys doing here, it's not P day."  Uh, what? Um, I'm sorry lady that I didn't break my wrist on a more convenient date so that I could get surgery on the missionaries off day. Sheesh, Utah. Luckily this lady's husband was there and told her that missionaries were not in fact breaking the rules by getting surgery outside of P day. 

      The surgery went well, there were no issues. They ended up putting a metal plate into my wrist that will stay there the rest of my life, which is whatever, I won't notice it and my wrist will work again so it sounds  good to me. After the surgery my mom came for the next couple days. That was nice, we played a lot of games and I got In-N-Out not once, but twice. It was actually really nice for her to come out here, but it also felt really strange. All in all, it's been one of my favorite weeks out on the mission though. 

       Final thing, I did end up having my first nonmember lesson. It was with a 9 year old boy. His family is active in the church, but his biological father wanted him to wait a year so that he's more prepared to make such a decision.

       I love all of you guys and want you to know that I'm doing well, Elder Blacker