The Phelps Gene Strikes Again

I'm not sure if we had an assigned blog post for this week or not... but in light of recent happenings I felt like I should share :)

-The following is an excerpt from a post I made on my personal blog back in the summer. Just for some background knowledge about me.

The Phelps Gene - Originally posted June 8th 2010

My Mothers maiden name is Phelps.

The “Phelps gene” is a little joke my Dad has to explain why my mom is so accident prone and clumsy. And I have gradually become the third generation of his joke.

You see it all starts with my Grandaddy who is maybe the most accident prone man alive. And alive is a key phrase because he’s also been very lucky. Grandaddy is a welder and he makes all kids of things by welding. And anyone who knows anything about welding could tell you that it tends to be a dangerous profession. Some of his most memorable accidents include a time that he was at work and he sauldered off the tip of his finger, but just kept it in his glove until his boss forced him to go to the hospital.

When he tells a story many of them have a little segwey where he’ll say “and so they drove me to Athens”… Because he lives in Madison and I guess the best hospital is in Athens.

And so they drove him to Athens… Reattached his finger an he went back to work the next day. Another time he was doing some kind of work on his roof and fell off his ladder and broke his back.

And so the drove him to Athens…

I remember really well my mom talking on the phone after that happened and hearing her say he was just thankful his truck was parked under him to break his fall. It's the little things right?

The Phelps gene runs a little more domestically for me and my mom. For my mom it’s the fact that I don’t think she’s ever used a kitchen knife without slicing open her hand. Or how she always has a bruise somewhere on her leg from running into her footboard. Little things like that. And we both share the trait that our pinky toes like to jump out and grab corners and table legs when we walk around. We Conley women are no stranger to broken toes.

Well what would you know but this weekend I had another little incident. I currently sit in my bed bandaged to my mid thigh in a temporary cast suffering from a fractured ankle. I await my big girl plaster cast which will be coming tomorrow *please let it only be a mid-calf cast, please don't make it half to go all the way up my leg like this temporary monstrosity*.

How did I do this to myself? Well it's not thaaaat exciting of a story.

I went home with my best friend/one of my room mates this weekend to Savannah. On Saturday night we went to the famous Forsyth Park to enjoy the beautiful weather and scenery. There was a swing set. We swung (swang?) on the swing set. And then I lept off my swing. A maneuver I have successfully completed many times before as a child. Repeat: As a child.

Well this time I was not successful. I don't know if it was my brittle old lady bones, the increased height and velocity with which i was swinging, or shear clumsiness that caused the fall.. but whichever I did not land gracefully on my feet as I had imagined. Instead I rolled my ankle and laid sprawled in the woodchips.

Much like my Granddaddy I did not immediately go to the hospital. Thinking it was just a sprain I went about my night, albeit rather painfully. Until this morning when I couldn't put any weight on the foot and then decided perhaps I should go get it checked out..

And so they drove me to St. Joseph's in Savannah...

Granddaddy would be proud.