Painful Lessons

broken armIn our injury cases, we spend a lot of time really trying to understand our clients’ injuries.

As I tell clients, it’s one thing to say that an injury causes you pain or causes you to be limited in your daily activities.

But it’s another thing entirely to hear anecdotes about your pain or your limitations. Those anecdotes paint a much better picture of how an injury really affects you.

Unfortunately, my family and I have a recent reminder of that lesson.

In February, my twelve year old son was taking part in an activity in his Sports and History class at school (and yes, they have better classes than we had). While doing the activity, my son fell and broke his arm.

The last month has been a real reminder on how injuries truly affect a person’s every day life.

For one, I’ve been reminded of the limitations that an injured person experiences — in ways that many of us take for granted.

But in addition to that, I have had a number of conversations with people about my son, the injury, and how he’s doing. And I’ve again been reminded how the anecdotes really tell the story.

For example, it’s one thing to tell people that my son has been limited by the injury. But people have a different reaction when I explain that his cast over his hand prevents him from wearing any pants with buttons or that because of his cast, I have to help him wash his hair every night.

I hope that he’s at the end of the road with his recovery, but that the lessons will stay with me.