Unfortunately I have no cool story to tell. Most people who lose a spleen are in a motorbike or car accident.

Me? I fell onto the wooden edging of a playground with just the right angle, and just the right force to rupture it. Somehow, it was cleanly torn in half.

Oh well --- you can't win 'em all, I suppose. For certain very specialist meanings of the word 'win'?

When I was about six or seven I fell over in the playground, sliding on ice, and managed to hit the side of my right wrist against the edge of a concrete slab, and gave myself a greenstick fracture. Despite complaining that it hurt, the teachers at the school didn't think there was anything wrong with me, and it was only after school that my father felt my wrist and decided there was a notch there, and I went to the hospital.

That wasn't the most annoying bit. The most annoying bit was that, while spending the day at school writing with a broken arm, all the teachers commented on how much my handwriting had improved.

Ow. That'd irritate the crap out of me.

My teachers weren't sure how to treat me on return: I was still re-learning walking, after being bed-ridden for 5 weeks. So some kind of let me get away with anything, and the others expected me to try harder to catch up.

But again: The school didn't think there was anything wrong with me at first, probably just winded. Then I started puking blood everywhere. Great way to get people to actually listen to a kid.

Also, what is it with not trusting kids with pain? I developed pains in my leg in Year 9. More than a decade later, and my specialists think that was the first symptom of either MS or one of the fibro family.

I know lots of kids complain about minor aches and pains... But give it a bit of attention would you?

The spleen is a solid organ. Imagine squeezing a solid ball made of foam or gelatin. It will tear as you squeeze it, as it can't flatten out like a hollow sphere could (i.e. your stomach, intestines, etc).

You have a number of solid organs, but the spleen and the liver are the most commonly injured, due to their positions on opposite sides of your abdomen.

Splenic ruptures are fairly common with serious abdominal trauma. There is even a grading system...

http://www.aast.org/Library/TraumaTools/InjuryScoringScales....

How common without serious abdominal trauma? I didn't bruise, tear any muscles or crack any ribs or anything of the like. That kind of stat might give me something to brag about, not like a crappy immune system is something to be proud of.

The grading system is kinda cool. Unfortunately I can't use behind my current WiFi away from home. Maybe you can tell me how I did: The spleen was horizontally rupture into two pieces.

It's not that uncommon to have little to no bruising. One of the more common signs is actually pain in the left shoulder[1]

As far as the grading of your spleen... It depends on whether the major vessels leading into the spleen were torn or not, but it certainly sounds like you had a grade 4 or 5 tear (on a scale of 1 to 5).

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kehr's_sign

That's really interesting, aren't nerves wonderful things?

4 or 5 sounds about right, I lost something around 2 quarts of blood, though that may have more been due to inaction.

All I remember from the ultrasound was thinking the red was really pretty, and then vomiting.

Thanks for sharing your knowledge, it's fascinating stuff.

Two quarts is getting very close to irreversible shock territory, so nice job not dying.

EDIT: Upon rereading... If you were in primary school, then two quarts would represent a very large fraction of your total blood volume (like, anywhere from 70 to 120%). You'd be very firmly in 'dead' territory at that point (assuming they weren't simultaneously putting more in)