A Dreamer: The Tale of a Broken Wrist

I’m a dreamer. Anyone who truly knows my heart knows that about me. I dream about my career. About writing. About politics. About marketing.  About my family. About God using my story. I live in a world where my dreams are a reality to me. Where I do everything I can to take advantage of opportunities to prepare myself for these crazy dreams I have. I believe that God shares His desires with us in so many ways, and I know that He does so in the dreams that He puts in our hearts.  But the truth of the matter is that if MY dreams never come true, I will still be satisfied. Fulfilled actually. Because I know that my God has a great story for me. And it may be nothing like I have planned, but it will be beautiful. His stories always are.

I am also another kind of dreamer, though. I have crazy dreams in my sleep. I regularly get up and walk around. I wake up sitting in my closet floor with different clothes on than when I went to bed. I even fold my clothes and put them away which I hardly even do when I'm awake. I roll out of bed more often than a preschooler. I wake up on my staircase after having tripped the motion sensor on my alarm in the middle of the night. One time I even convinced a fellow counselor at Church camp that all of our campers were missing. She gathered some adults and looked all over camp for them. Meanwhile, I got back in my bed. Along with the campers that were there the entire night. Yep. I totally made it all up in my sleep.

Well, for the long weekend I decided to go to Indiana to see my sister and her family. I love those little nephews that I always blog about. I subscribe to their city's weather on my iPhone so that I know if they're waking up to snowflakes or sunshine. I talk about them regularly. I look through old videos just so I can hear their voices. We had the best weekend together. Just hanging out, drawing, building lego towers, racing cars, dodging nerf darts, and playing lots of "I'm gonna get you". Plus, we ate lots of really great food courtesy of my talented sister. About half way through the weekend she asked me if I had any good material to blog about yet (which I now know is a Blogger’s Curse). I replied, "No, not really. Except that a man at church accidentally called me Ashley... Because he thought I looked just like Ashley Judd…" Random. And so not true. I personally think Ashley Judd looks like a brunette Katherine Heigl, but that is neither here nor there.

On Sunday night we all enjoyed skillet popped popcorn and watched Swiss Family Robinson, an old family classic.  The significance of this is still to be determined.  Later that night I kissed the boys Good Night, made plans with my sis for the next day, went down to the den, and got in my cozy pull-out couch bed. I fell asleep quickly like usual. BUT.... The next thing I know I am camping and on some kind of air mattress on the ground. But then my mattress turns into a raft and I am on a river. I see yellow, beady, glowing eyes beside me. A snake! I'm terrified as the snake attempts to get on my raft to attack me.  But just in time for my much-needed rescue, I look across the river and see that there is another raft that's floating by. I get on my hands and knees and, with as much effort as possible, spring off of my Snake Raft and jump onto the Rescue Raft beside me.

And then I wake up. On the hard concrete floor. On my hands and knees. Three feet lower than the pullout couch that I started on. I wasn't jumping raft to raft. I was jumping from bed to concrete floor. In the moment I just think about how crazy I am and try to crawl back in bed, but soon realize I'm in a lot of pain. My left wrist hurts so bad. There are shooting pains from my fingertips all the way up to my elbow. I try to shake it off. Well, not literally because I can't move it. So then I try to give myself a pep talk. But instead of the pain going away, it gets worse and starts to take over my entire body. Even though it is 12:30 am, it doesn’t take long for me to decide to go up to my sister’s room and wake her up. But I realize that I'm in so much pain that walking makes me think I'm gonna be sick. I sit down in her floor, drink a little bit of water, let her put a sling (and shoes) on me, and she drives me to the local hospital.  At this point I know it's broken. If it isn't then something crazy is going on because I can wiggle my fingers a little but there is no way I can move my wrist very much at all. I just know that this is a lot of pain. There are approximately 2 patients at the tiny hospital in town, so my crazy dream story spreads fast. Every nurse that comes in says something to the effect of “What exactly were you dreaming about?” or “How exactly does someone your age fall out of bed?” To which I always remind them that I didn’t fall. I leaped. My favorite was the x-ray tech who hardly uttered any words to me, took my xrays, glanced at the scans and said, “Well… that must've been some snake.” Why yes, yes it was. So my radius is broken pretty good right where it meets my wrist and there some mild displacement. They put me in a splint and sling and sent me with orders to visit a doctor asap.  

Sleep-Deprived and in a LOT of Pain

My sister drove me the four hours home to Nashville so that I could visit a local surgeon.  Tomorrow I will have surgery to have a plate and screws inserted. And then I’ll make friends with the cast that will impair my hair straightening, jewelry fastening, blog typing, jar opening skills for the next couple of months.   

So blame my dreams on the Swiss Family Robinson adventure, the Blogger’s Curse, or some deeply rooted psychological issue that only a Sleep Center could figure out…but the point remains.  I broke my wrist in a dream. Seriously. Who does that? Apparently only this dreamer does.

Update: Read about my surgery here.
Update: Read about my sleep study here.