How Pi Saved My Life

The story of me and pi, or rather, how Pi saved my life.

It all started in 9th grade math. We were ian honors Pre-Cal and me and my friends worked really hard in that class and very much enjoyed it. So when our teacher offered 20 extra-credit test points for the student who had the most digits of pi memorized, I jumped at the chance. I worked at a dog kennel at the time, so I digits every day at work while petting the dogs, etc. I memorized 50 that year and won! So I continued that every year.

My senior year, I was shooting for 100 digits. I had two math classes (AP calc and AP statistics) so winning would mean a lot for me.

So it's March 2006, I'm a senior, and it's Spring Break. My mom was the YW Prez and she was sick of rolling her eyes at all the fun things the scouts got to do. So she put together a little biking trip for us on a forest trail during spring break. She went the week before with an experienced biker to try out the trail. Well she had already had her knee surgery once or twice at this point, so when she lost her balance and tried to catch herself with her bad knee, she fell and broke her arm.

She blamed it on her age though and bad knee, so told us all to go ahead with the trip. She waited at the end of the trail with lunch. 

There were around 10 girls and 2 leaders I think. I was the oldest, so was determined to show off, I guess. Everything went fine until the end. There was a clearing with a huge dirt pit that had "levels" to it. So we were playing around on it with our bikes--going up and down the little "slides" or whatever. Well then I noticed there were three levels to the whole pile, really. So I went to the very top and was going to go down all three bump/slides. Having never done something like this before, I didn't realize that you cannot turn your bike in dirt when you are going fast down an incline. Nor did I notice that there was a big tree there. So I smacked straight into the tree and broke my leg bones clean in two. It was a loud crack. I screamed out that I think I broke my leg and the leaders and girls came over and started to inspect. They were trying to keep the other girls from freaking out and myself, I think. But I think they told me later that my leg was bending at a weird angle. So one of the leaders is holding my leg together and calling my mom to call the ambulance. The other leader, who happened to be a math teacher at my HS and knew I was really into pi, had me recite pi to stay awake until the ambulance came. As delirious as I was, I still recited it perfectly and she laughed at me. 

I stayed awake until the ambulance came and so that's how pi saved my life. :)

Pi is still very special to me and now I have about 220 digits memorized. Pi digits line the ceiling of my classroom and I take a day off teaching to celebrate pi day every year.

(The end of the leg story is that they splinted me in the forest and shot me up with some morphine after several stick attempts. 2 police officers and 2 ambulance workers carried me out of the rough terrain of the forest and to the hospital in the ambulance--my mom came too. I had the splint for a little bit and then we tried a cast, but my bones weren't matching right, so I had to get surgery and I have a rod and three screws through my leg now. My knee skin is still without feeling and I can feel two of the screws in my ankle. The impact of the break was on the right side of my leg and so the left side of my leg has a bump of bone that grew on over the break. I still remember my wheel chair and crutches and trying to use the restroom and get clothes over that big cast (all the way up to my thigh). I took over my parents' bed for a few days because I couldn't climb stairs. I also had to spot-shower during the cast time. Oh it was all terrible. I don't think I can describe what it is like when doctors and nurses move your leg and the bones are broken. It hurts!)

To this day, I haven't been back to that trail and I have no clue where that trail is now exactly. I still am very scared on a bike. The YW never really did anything else fun or exciting again outside girls camp. :(