Fear not, it’s not my arm. Nor is it Cindy’s arm. It’s my mom’s arm. The plan was to leave Beijing on the 2nd for Tangshan, and leave Tangshan on the 6th for Shanghai. My parents would leave on the 8th, after which Cindy and I would be on our own. None of that happened.

We had already checked out of our hotel and were waiting in the lobby for our driver to take us to Tangshan. My mom decided to use the bathroom. When she came out, she didn’t see a step and fell forward, slamming her arm into the adjacent wall. That gnarly break you see in the x-ray is my mom’s arm, snapped into two at a diagonal angle.

In a weird twist of fate, it’s the exact same break that I had when I was four, and in the exact same arm. The difference, of course, is that I broke my arm in 1988. It’s now 2015. I had multiple surgeries and a humongous cast. My mom had a single surgery, conducted that same day, and only required a small incision. Through the incision, the doctors (somehow) inserted a titanium rod and secured it with several screws. No cast required. What, you think all the Chinese doctors are wrecking curves in the USA?

My mom’s slow progression towards becoming Wolverine

Our hotel was booked solid so we couldn’t stay there any more. Instead, my grandma went to stay with my aunt and Cindy and I crashed at my grandma’s with my aunt and uncle. We would leave for Tangshan on the 5th and will skip Shanghai entirely. My parents will fly to Shanghai on the 7th (their flight leaves from Shanghai), stay at an airport hotel, and leave for the USA on the 8th. We fully expected our itinerary to change at some point, but not necessarily for this reason.

On the bright side, my mom is doing well, we get to spend a few extra days in Beijing, and stay with my awesome uncle and aunt.

Awesome uncle and aunt