Boing! The bounce pass was perfect, right to me. I grabbed it and AAAaaaahhhhh! A streak of agony tore down my arm and settled in the middle of the back of my hand. I dropped the basketball and hunched over clenching my left hand, trying to ease the pain that had taken over. Then suddenly, it was gone.

"I'm not sure what's wrong, but you should get an x-ray. Something feels strange in there," said Dr. Johnston.

"Okay we'll do that," my dad replied. Then we set up an appointment at a place in Woodburn.

Later that week my dad and I went to my appointment. When we got there, a nurse took me into a room with a funny looking black machine and a table. They put my arm on the table under the machine and took x-rays. We then had to wait half an hour for the prints to drop off at the doctor's office. When we got home after running some errands, there was a message from the doctor.

"Hi, I was calling about Ben's x-ray; there's something I would like to talk about," he said over the message machine. My dad called him back and talked for a long time. When he hung up he told me the x-ray showed what looked like a cyst taking up the entire inside of my lunate bone in my hand, which could make it really weak. He scheduled me for an appointment with Dr. McWheeney.

We went to Dr. McWheeney's and he said I should get an M.R.I. and then come see him again. When I walked in to get an M.R.I., they had me remove anything metal because of the magnetism. We then walked through a giant, two-inch thick solid oak door and saw a gigantic circular machine. A man had me lay down on a table and put on big puffy headphones. Then the table moved slowly forward underneath the red lights in the middle of the machine. It made constant, loud obnoxious banging noises for twenty minutes, until finally it was over. My ears were still ringing when we left the building. We went back to Dr. McWheeney and he set up an appointment with a hand and wrist specialist, Dr. Van Allen, and gave me a green cast.

I walked into Dr. Van Allen's office and showed him the M.R.I. scans. He looked at them and said he thought it was a cyst but he wasn't sure. He told me to get a CT scan. When I saw the CT machine, I thought it was an M.R.I., but then I saw how much smaller it was. It also took only five minutes, and wasn't really loud.

I went back to Dr. Van Allen and he finally confirmed that it was a cyst, and that I would need surgery to remove it. He set my surgery for Friday, March 19th. I waited anxiously for the day to come, but surprisingly I wasn't nervous.

When the day finally came for my surgery, I got up and went to the hospital with my parents at 7:30 in the morning. I got checked in, and waited forever. I finally was taken to my room and given a gown and hospital pants. They made me sit in the bed while they warmed my hand. Then they put in the IV, which was a lot less painful than I thought. After a while, Dr. Van Allen came in, in his blue surgery attire. He initialed my arm and gave me a hairnet. Very soon after that they started drugging me with different numbing medicine, and a little anesthetics. After that I don't remember anything until I woke up.

Two and a half hours later, I opened my eyes. In my groggy state I saw a big light on the ceiling. Blinking, I tried and failed to lift my head. I noticed a young lady standing next to my bed. She asked a question. I didn't understand, but I nodded. A cold substance hit my mouth which must have been open, and soothed my parched throat. The ice helped me wake up, and soon I could raise my head to examine my surroundings. I lay in a bed in the middle of a long, large room. Across the room was a man lying with oxygen tanks hooked up and strange spots on his face. The air was dry and smelled like hand sanitizer. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all white, along with white counters, tables, and beds. The sight made me squint. Then I saw my arm elevated on a pillow.

"Do you want to go back to your room?", the lady asked in a high, sweet voice. I nodded and enjoyed the slight breeze on my face as I rolled through the hall. I saw my parents as I rolled into my room. I suddenly needed a restroom. The nurse and my dad assisted me as we made the slow trek towards the bathroom. Then a wave of nausea hit me and the nurse had the bag ready as bile became a liquidy present for it. With that adventure over and done, I slowly walked back and laid down.

I was tired and hungry so they gave me some pudding; bad idea. The pudding left to the bag from the same entrance it came in, in less than an hour.

About twenty minutes later after getting to my room, I noticed a small nudge of pain in my left hand. In forty minutes, on a scale of 1 to 10, the pain was at about a low four. By the time it had been an hour and a half, the pain had risen to a screaming ten. It felt as if someone put a clamp in my bone and was slowly pulling the bone apart. My fingers swelled up to the size of hot dogs and I clenched my teeth to keep from yelling in agony. I tried taking the narcotics, but I couldn't keep them down, so they finally gave me ibuprofen. After nearly three hours of torturous pain, it finally subsided to a dull throb. I watched TV and ate a little. By 4:45 I wanted to go home. We drove home using only one catch bag on the road. I then began the slow road to recovery where I persevere to get better.