That Time I Almost Died

      So I'm ten and there's this tree on our side of the fence and its branches straddled our neighbor's yard.  I built a tree fort and one Saturday grabbed some frozen pizza Mom made and headed up there.  That's the day I almost died. 

                      That One Time When I Was 10 & Broke My Spleen
     

    Looking back, there were two omens.  It was the only time Mom didn't say, "Be careful, Janie."  And I saw Frank Dunford, who was kind of an enemy of mine by then, smoking behind his tool shed, watching me while I climbed up there.  Did he loosen the nails on my fort?  I've always wondered.

    Somehow the floor wiggled and or I sat wrong and then, SLAM!  I hit the ground like the coyote in a Road Runner cartoon, full frontal.  Splat.

    It was only around 10 or 12 feet down, but it knocked the wind out of me and it was hard to breathe.  I passed out for a little, then woke up to see my dad jump over the fence in one fluid move like a champ.  Even though he was a soldier, I never thought of him as real macho and it surprised me, even while lying there.  I was thinking, "Wow, Dad.  I'm impressed."

       Next we're at Martin Army Hospital in Ft. Benning.  There's this Army doctor with a strong accent, Isreali I think, but no one knew what was wrong.  My belly kept getting bigger and harder and I was hurting worse but after a few days I felt better and they turned me loose to go home. 

      Back home, I waited a day then asked Mom if I could go to my best friend, Becky's, house.  She said maybe later which meant no, so I waited until nobody was paying attention and went anyway  I didn't feel real hot halfway there so she gave me her bike to ride back home.  I got home, passed out in the bathroom and it was back to the hospital.

        At the hospital, it was a nightmare.  They tried to cram a long clear tube up my nose and down my throat to my stomach but I fought so hard they finally had to knock me all the way out. 

     As I'm waiting for the anesthesia to kick all the way in, Dad and Mom came to my bed and Dad said, "Janie, baby you need to get an operation to see what's wrong.  But you can have anything you want to play with when you wake up, OK?"

   I said, "Anything?"
   And he said it again.  "Anything."
   So I said, "Daddy I want...I want...a motorized go-cart."  Then I fell asleep.

      When I came to, it turns out I'd ruptured my spleen and it was leaking and bad.  They hacked it out and sopped it up, but for all that, I never did get that motorized go-cart.  Just a zipper scar up and down my front, a Jane West action figure set and a giant stuffed St. Bernard doll. 

     And that zipper scar?  Never once kept me out of a bikini, even to this day!  And I'm an old old broad.