"I've been training it, but we're not sure if we're going to use it. We'll keep training it for another week and maybe make a decision. It's a 3.8 in difficulty." - Former USA diver Laura Wilkinson on the “monster dive” she was practicing as part of her program in the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.
The difficulty referenced, short for “Degree of Difficulty”, is often referred to as the "DD" in competitive diving. The DD takes into consideration the number of twists and somersaults planned in a dive, among other criteria. It’s one of the elements used to calculate a diving score. It is multiplied with the judges' scores to create a total score for an individual dive. The scores are added together for a final total score, with the highest score being the winner.
Simple enough.
So how does scoring work for plain-old recreational diving? Those events where the only judges are your peers? And with any luck, an orthopedic surgeon or two in attendance as well. Coupled with the scoring criteria rationalized in competitive diving, I’m of the firm belief that your health insurance deductible should also be taken into consideration as well. My thinking is that a high insurance deductible should add a solid two-tenths of a point onto one’s difficulty. An unwritten directive in the sport of non-competitive crib-diving. This would have given our toddler a solid 4.0 DD for her monster dive and a sure Sunday night Olympic Gold.
Sunday night… Why is it always a Sunday night?
There was a loud “thud” from the second floor. It’s a sound similar to those that we have become accustomed to hearing with our older children and their ritualistic, galloping burst of pre-bedtime lunacy. Problem was, they were already quietly reading in their beds. To break our monotonous routine, the noise was followed up with a piercing, painful cry erupting from our toddler’s bedroom. This was certainly an added twist.
After laying her down for the evening, she managed to scale up and out of her crib…only to triple-pike and one-and-a-half twist herself into the carpet below. Based on the height of the crib and the numerous technical/aerial possibilities, I’m guessing that her DD was epic on this particular dive.
As procedurally requisite by household edict, panic promptly ensued thereafter.
Once we were finally able to determine that she hadn’t permanently maimed herself, we started assessing her overall condition. She favored her left arm and could barely lift it. Having dislocated my shoulder in an icy snow-skiing debacle back in college, it looked awfully familiar. To ensure that nothing was separated or broken, we deemed it necessary to perform a series of basic medical tests to gauge her overall diagnosis of damage. The fact that neither my wife nor I are trained medical professionals just took the episode’s ridiculousness to an all new level of idiocy.
I promptly administered a mixed bag of assessments that included such battlefield-proven and AMA-certified tests such as “give daddy hugs”, “raise the roof”, and “grab the toy that I’m holding over your head”. Luckily, it was determined that a trip to the ER was required before I was able to make her do “The Dougie”.
In the end, it turned out that it wasn’t her shoulder at all. It was a buckle fracture of the wrist. It was this obvious ineptitude in the medical diagnoses department which explained my high school guidance counselor’s propensity for giggle fits at the mere mention of my medical school aspirations. To my defense, I did narrow the injury down to the correct appendage. However, the overall success rates in defending the “round-about” diagnosis technique probably wouldn’t play out particularly well in a malpractice suit.
To ensure that her fracture healed correctly, the orthopedic surgeon stated that she was required to wear a hard cast over her wrist and forearm. A little pink cast that would be required to stay on her arm for three weeks.
“Three weeks? That’s it? Three weeks is nothing!”
It lasted roughly 24 hours. After the swelling had gone down, she wasted no time in yanking it off with relative ease. She casually strolled into the kitchen and handed us her cast. Unfazed and completely unassuming, she followed it up with a firmly verbal “off” before leaving the kitchen. I interpreted this in adult-speak as “silly minions, your petty restraints are no match for my iron-will and unrelenting determination”.
Game on.
I’ll see your “will and determination” and raise you “two unremitting parents”. A trip back to the orthopedic doctor the following day warranted her a smaller, yet tighter cast.
Her second cast lasted considerably longer in comparison. About five days to be precise. You can’t fault her for a lack of trying though. Tugging, pulling, even throwing herself into a tub of water in an ill-conceived attempt to bob for apples at a friend’s Halloween party. Personally, I think that successfully snagging said apple while achieving little-to-no splash upon entry should provide for at least another two-tenths cushion in the DD department. We’ve got to be up to a stellar 4.2 at this point.
In the end though, she managed to yank this one off too. Yet another trip to the orthopedic office.
In a move that could be characterized as nothing short of desperation, the third cast was applied over her forearm and bent elbow. Matching wills, we were just as determined to keep this one on as she was to get it off.
Good luck with that one, Houdini.
The third cast represented our “Alamo”. A final stand that would limit her ability to do the everyday things, but also ensure that she had no way of getting it off. A week later, however, we found it sitting next to her in her crib.
“Off.”
Duly noted.
With only a couple days left on her three week immobilization period, we waved the white flag and conceded defeat to a determined two year old. We were beaten. Outwitted. It had become apparent to us that her head was obviously harder than any of these casts were. Besides, I think we were officially “black-balled” by that particular orthopedic practice after the second cast anyway.
Three casts in two and a half weeks. Houdini, Copperfield, and Angel? Those jokers were mere illusionists... This kid was a magician.
Even as I struggle to figure out the contorted physics behind her multiple escape acts, there is something to be said for her unconditional resolve. As with everything else that she does, she doesn’t rely on others. If there is something that she wants or doesn’t like, she simply grabs the bull by the horns…and cannonballs it. There simply isn’t a DD measurement for that kind of monster dive.
Her teens ought to be a riot.
