It was a normal summer morning in 2011.  The temperatures were rising, the sun was shining, and the birds were chirping.  Little did I know, I would be in the hospital several minutes later.  I was five years old at the time, having the time of my life as I made the most of the summer before starting school.  A few hours after waking up, I was playing with my legos and running around outside like a normal kindergartener until I noticed my mom framing a giant new picture.  Unsurprisingly, I was mesmerized by it and rushed over to observe it.  The picture itself fascinated me.  I found it incomprehensible how someone could create such a beautiful painting that was twice my size. I was so fascinated with the artwork that I was oblivious to my mom setting the 60-foot-long glass frame on the couch behind me.  After staring at the art for a minute or so, I got tired.  With my mom distracted and not paying close attention to me, I had full control of my actions.  I jumped right on the couch with the glass laid on top of it to relax.  And then it happened.  

    As I jumped on the couch, the unprotected corner of the glass slid right through the front of my knee.  From what I can remember, I just heard a scream from my mom.  I didn’t know what just happened but I knew it couldn’t be good.  I was still so distracted by the art.  But after a few seconds, I looked down at my knee and saw gushing blood and a flap of skin the size of a golf ball hanging from the side of it.  As I began sobbing in pain, my mom began to freak out since she had never seen anything like this.  She scrambled around the house looking for toilet paper because that was the only thing that could temporarily cover a wound that big.  Luckily, I only live 5 blocks from a hospital so time wasn’t an issue.  However, I thought it was.  As soon as we got in the car, a stream of emotions flooded my mind.  “Am I going to die? Will I bleed out?  Will I lose my leg?” My mom assured me that that wasn’t going to happen and everything would be okay.

    After an examination from the doctor, we were informed that I would need 35-40 stitches.  As a five year old, I thought that was good news.  My mom’s expression, though, convinced me otherwise. She appeared to be quite disturbed, and I thought I saw her heart break as she took in the information. I ended up needing 37 stitches and to wear a bandage for a month afterward, which made my knee less flexible and gave me an ongoing itch.  Surprisingly, from what I can remember, it wasn’t that painful.  The painful part, however, was having to start kindergarten with it a week later.  I was worried that all my new classmates would be terrified of me because they saw me wearing a bandage half the size of their head on their first days of school.  

I was completely mistaken.  Despite the frightening-looking bandage on my leg, all of my new teachers and classmates were incredibly supportive and friendly to me. After I took it off, everyone, including myself, was in shock of what my knee looked like.  It looked like someone took a chunk out of it and never put it back.  To this day, I still have the giant scar on my knee and will have it for the rest of my life.  It's become a part of me that I will always have to live with and looking at it reminds me to think before every risky action I take.