Two things occurred to me tonight that made me wonder just how underdeveloped my frontal lobe was as a teenager, or whether I was in possession of one at all.

Memory #1

When I was a teenager, maybe 14, my very smart but reckless brother, Steve, and I were supposed to be at a teen church group meeting. It’s the only reason that Dad would let Steve take the car.

Instead, because of the rebels that we were, we decided to go for a joyride. So, we took off over the St. Johns bridge that crossed the Willamette river. I think Steve had the bright idea to go to visit his girlfriend, Kathy, who hadn’t shown up for the group meeting, either.

At the South end of the bridge, one must make a sharp right turn or a sharp left turn or opt to run headlong into the rock mountain at the end of the bridge.

As we approached the intersection, Steve asked casually, “which direction should I go, left or right?” I didn’t answer quick enough so Steve stupidly ran head long into the mountain, totaling Dad’s car. (This was just the first of many car accidents Steve would have.)

Steve at least had the sense to throw himself across the seat but it didn’t hinder me from sliding down onto the floor. It did stop me, however, from crashing through the windshield or cracking my face on the dashboard. I’m sure that we were speeding since Steve had a tendency to speed and a predilection for danger.

He broke the rear view mirror with his body but he saved me from certain death or at least serious injury. We came to a sudden halt with a loud crash.

Steve hadn’t even applied the brakes. He pulled himself into a seated position and I pushed myself up off the floor. I noticed first of all that my pantyhose were destroyed. My reaction was not concern for our well being or for the car or for whether Dad would kill both of us or not, instead I exclaimed, “O, my God, my nylons”.

We’re alive to tell the story, which means that when the police brought us home, Dad slumped down in the doorway and cried… instead of killing us.

Memory #2

As many of you know who follow my blog, I contracted polio when I was 5 years old. Fortunately, I was only permanently affected when the deltoid in my right shoulder atrophied. As time went on, complications arose because of this and I had to have surgery to fuse the humerus (the upper arm bone) to the scapula (shoulder blade). This was long before joint replacements, so my orthopedic surgeon, Dr. Marxer, attached the two bones with what can only be described as a big deck bolt.

By this time I was in high school and was a growing young girl. After the surgery, I was in a cast that covered my torso, my arm, my shoulder and held my right arm out in front of me and a little to the side at a right angle. Needless to say, it weighed a ton, at least it felt like it. It rested on my right hip and to this day I have an indentation where it rested. And worst of all, the cast covered my right breast but not my left breast.

Since I was developing, my biggest concern was whether my left breast would grow larger than my right breast with my right breast being stunted under pounds of cast plaster.

Since my physician put a large bolt in the joint to hold my arm in place and since there wasn’t a deltoid to hold it in, I was in extreme pain as it healed and as the bone grew over the bolt.

Eventually the cast came off. But it wasn’t long before the the new, delicate bone broke and I had to go in for a second surgery. This required another cast. As those who have had bone surgery can attest, bone surgery is extremely painful. But what was my main worry? Why yes. It was, once again, whether my right breast would be able to grow as freely as the left one.

I had to put aside my embarrassment and gather all my courage to ask my doctor if my worries had any validity. To my chagrin, he didn’t have an answer for me. Most likely he didn’t have many teenage girl patients who had one breast in a cast and one breast out.

Like with my worries about my nylons being ruined in the car wreck, there I was having serious bone surgery and I was more concerned with my boobs than the health of my shoulder.

As it turns out, my concern was not baseless. Indeed my left breast is larger than my right. I will never know if it is because my right pectoral muscles were not as strenuously exercised as my left or if my conjecture was accurate… the damned cast inhibited equal opprtunity for growth.