How Broken Bones Work

It's a pretty miserable thing to break a bone. There's the initial blinding pain, all of the medical procedures during a trip to the hospital and then, in the best case example, you have to wear a cast for four months. Beneath all of this misery, though, your body is carrying out some pretty amazing processes.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the all new Toyota Corolla. Welcome
to Stuff You Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, and this is Stuff you Should Know the

(00:21):
podcast Audio Adventure our great subtitle Chuck, have you ever
broken a bone? I have not. You better knock on
wood right this instant. Yeah, I could say the same thing,
except I'm pretty certain that I've broken my small toe
several times over the course of my life. Yeah, there's

(00:44):
not all you can do about that there, right, No.
I mean, like I didn't go see a doctor or
anything like that, which is why I'm not certain I
broke it. But I'm pretty certain just based on the
amount of pain involved in it. Um. But other than that,
you know, I've never had like a sling or anything
like that. I was got cuts, oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
I was always stitched up in things, never broken back, stitches,

(01:06):
leg foot, tongue, almost bit my tongue off. I've never
had stitches. Really. Yeah, Well, you've lived a relatively healthy life,
my friend. I guess so. And I mean it's not
like I haven't been adventure Boy or anything like that.
I've I've gotten in all sorts of REX accidents. If
I had a brick fall on my head and put
my arm through a storm window and I was a
little baby. Um. I once was riding my awesome blue

(01:29):
and yellow mag wheel BMX bike and went to go
up a curb, but my brain misfired, and rather than
pull up on the handlebars, I pressed down and went
right over the handlebars hard. I've done that on a
mountain bike. I played football. I got hit in the
head with the baseball playing baseball. I'm It's not like
I was like a milk toast or anything like that,

(01:52):
like Bruce Willis, I wouldn't say that, just because I'm
just too superstitious for that kind of thing. But I
have not had stitches or a broken bump. But now
I know all about broken bones and how they heal,
because they do heal, and it's not just your saw
bones that's healing them, like the heal on themselves. And

(02:13):
it turns out medical science is basically just there to
assist a beautiful, elegant, natural process that's already in place. Yeah,
I think I'm just amazed at the body's natural healing capabilities.
I think it's really neat. Um. I am too, Like
you can regenerate your own tail, your vestigial tail, if

(02:33):
you make it out of the womb with one of those.
If if you lost your third nipple, it might just
grow right back, your superfluous third nipple. Yeah. Uh so
I guess you know, I am a few years away
from being more susceptible. Apparently, men after forty five are
more susceptible to breaking bones. And oh no, I'm sorry

(02:54):
pre forty five, right, so I'm almost in the clear. Yeah,
And I suspect that that is you to um, then
being more active, yeah, um, because that's in men. If
you're you're more susceptible to breaking a bone. Um. And
then women are more susceptible to breaking a bone after

(03:15):
that age yeah, when they reach menopause. Um. And the
most commonly broken bone is what, uh, the wrist, right, yeah,
the radius bone of the wrist. I guess from all
the tennis people play. I think my theory on that
is is that's how you know, It's a lot of
that comes from trying to break your fall by putting

(03:35):
your hand out, But that just happens a lot. It
makes you wonder what bones we would break and how
many more bones we break and we didn't have response
to break. Well, if you or if you didn't try
to break your fall, you just break your face over
and over, I guess, um. And then in the elderly age,
seventy five are over. According to this article by Robert
Lamb m, hip fractures are the most common and those

(03:57):
are painful. Yeah, I'm sure that's like, yeah, you hear
about that lot. Very sad. Yeah, like fall in the bathtub,
break the old hip. Um. So there's different types of
fractures that can take place, right, Like there's not there's
the simple fracture, which is the most um like the
one you're if you're going to break a bone, this
is the one you hope for. Um. But it is

(04:17):
and it may even be the most common. I don't
know if what's the most common. It's just a clean,
simple break in one place only, right, and there's not
like a bunch of other trauma or like associated pain
or or well there's probably a lot of pain, but
problems that come out of it's just like snap. And
then there's a clean break that's a simple fracture. That's

(04:39):
definitely not the only kind of fracture. No. The dreaded
compound fracture, which I think strikes fear into the hearts
of everybody, is when your bone is poking through your skin. Yeah,
like Joe Tisman or the guy in the March Madness recently.
I don't think I saw that one. Oh man, it
is bad. I can't They're a mirror. Neurons kick in

(05:01):
so hard when that stuff happens. There's this there's this
animated gift of this, the footage of the guy he
just fell down wrong, um and he fell down right
in front of his own bench, and there's like the
reaction of like the guys on the bench just like, oh,
they all look like they're about to faint because they're
like two ft away from like one of the worst

(05:23):
things you could possibly see in an a live human.
You know, it's awful. Yeah, But those that's a compound fraction,
those are kind of dangerous because they can lead to
infection pretty easily, by the way, you know, Joe, thisman,
I don't know if this is true. Supposedly his name
was pronounced Theisman until college, and he changed it to
rhyme with Heisman in a push for the trophy. No way,

(05:44):
I've heard that. I'm not sure. I need to look
that up to verify it. That might be a an
urban legend, could be, but I always call him Joe
Theisman as a joke. But either way, the he the
compound fracture came out of his thigh, didn't it. M
I can't remember. I thought it was more like the knee.
It was gruesome, remember, like seeing it live? I never
saw it. Yeah, yeah, all right. So there's also the

(06:06):
impacted fracture, when one end of the fracture, one end
of the bone is driven into the other. That sounds
pretty gnarly too. Yeah, that sounds really awful. A communuded fracture, Uh,
that's when the bone shatters into fragments. That's probably that's
pretty bad. Yeah, I'm sure fresh quite problematic, and as

(06:28):
we'll find out, you'd probably end up a tad bit
shorter if you have one of those in like your tibia,
because you have to get rid of that stuff. Yeah,
the bone fragments. There's the super cute green stick fracture. Yeah,
this one to me was like, um, the same as
imagining pulling back a fingernail. But then it retracting back. Yeah,

(06:54):
this is a this is among children. It's a type
of fracture specific to children where the bone like bends
and snaps, but it doesn't fully break. Yeah, it cracks,
but don't. It's like a green twig. Imagine that, like
if you bend it, you can't really snap it into
Oh that's why they call it that. Oh yeah, okay, yeah,
green stick. That makes sense. The old timbertoe uh. And

(07:15):
then an evolution fracture is um. Robert describes it as
a powerful muscle contraction and it wrenches bone, intending forcing
a fracture. That sounds pretty awful. Yeah, I looked this up.
So basically what this is is your the muscles around
your bone. In some instances, very unusual instances, can um

(07:36):
contract so powerfully that it snaps the bone under what circumstance.
So um, Normally, our muscles aren't powerful enough to snap
bone because we have um neurological control over the muscles. Apparently,
athletes can train beyond this point and can be at

(07:56):
risk for an evulsion fracture by pushing their muscle muscles
so hard that like they can make them powerful enough
to snap their own bones. And in a very strong
high jump or jump um, the tibia, the shin bone
is particularly at risk for an evulsion fracture among highly

(08:16):
trained athletes. Man, So imagine jumping so hard they snap
your own bones with your mouth. That's crazy. Well, we
learned in the when you get shocked, you know, like
our body has that reserve, Like when you get shocked
from and then blown across the room. That's actually not
the power blowing across the room. That's your muscles are
so strong and capable of doing that under the right circumstance,

(08:39):
exactly like the potentials there, but we have a neurological
filter that keeps us from doing that. And I looked
that up to to see if there was like an
association of evulsion fractures and electrocutions. They couldn't find anything.
But it seems intuitive, doesn't it. Yeah? I think so. Yeah.
And then finally the pathological fracture just the most dastardly
of fractures. Um. It's when the bones are weakened by

(09:02):
disease and really break pretty easily. They're brittle like osteoporosis killing, unbreakable.
But Sam Jackson's character, yes, Mr what's his name? Mr
Brittle like that. I can't remember, but he was, remember
his bones broken very easily. That was the premise of that.
At least was a really great It was a great movie.

(09:23):
I really enjoyed. Actually, I thought it was like his
only good movie. He didn't like The Sixth Sense, and
I guess that was okay. That was a great It's
hard to remember though, because he's sucked so much since then.
I felt bad for that guy, and it's kind of
great imagination, but um, yeah, I guess it's just I
don't know what the problem is because he has He's

(09:45):
made some great movies. At the Village. That was a
really good movie. I didn't care for it. Are you
kidding me? I didn't care for it. I thought that
twist was amazing enough. With the twists with that guy,
Oh well, that's the whole thing. One trick pony. No
he's not. It's like calling oh Henry a one trick pony.
There's twists like just having a twist. Alfred Hitchcock, Master

(10:07):
of the twist, Master of the twist. I have a
few other bone facts, just since we're talking about bones.
Uh we know. I think we said it on our
TV show even you're born with about three fifty bones
and when you die you have two six because a

(10:28):
lot of your bones fused together from when you're a
little baby. Um in the hand, in the foot, in
the thorax, in the vertibal crump, the what I just
spaced out vertebral column rom and uh, only one in
the throat. We have a bone in the throat apparently,

(10:51):
so where you know right there you're touching it, that's
my atoms apple. By twenty years old, we have a
of our skeletal mass, and our bone density peaks at
thirty and then starts going down the hill after that,
right it does. But um, there's a lot of confusion
out there. I assume that our skeleton stops growing. Yeah,

(11:13):
and it does, Like we do reach a point where
what did you say? Thirty thirty is where it peaks.
So our skeleton has reached the it's full size. But
that doesn't mean it stops producing um skeleton, new skeleton.
Apparently every year a full ten percent of our skeleton
is totally regenerated. Yeah, which we'll get to that process, okay. Uh.

(11:33):
And then alcohol and smoking, um are no good for
your bones. Um. You lose density and osteopenia, which is
sort of like a pre asteoporosis, I guess, and that
before I think, yeah, I think when I was a smoker,
I knew that, Like it was bad for bones, it's
definitely bad for teeth. And I'm sure the tour associated
because I'll bet it's bone loss that makes your teeth

(11:55):
fall out from smoking. Totally is um. And then I
guess I've got some stuff on how to support your
bones and good foods and stuff, but um, maybe we
should do that at the end. Oh yeah, a happy ending. Okay, yeah,
so chuck. Um, Well, we know virtually everything there is
to know about bones, but we don't know how they
work yet. We're about to, right, So, like I said, um,

(12:21):
we regenerate about ten percent of our skeleton every year,
and not the same time percent. It's just this constant
process called bone remodeling. Yeah, our bones aren't just like
dead sticks that are flesh and muscle are wrapped around there.
It's living matter, just like the rest of your body. Right.
And in addition to um the support and structure for

(12:42):
your body um that the muscalo skeletal system provides, it's
also your skeleton is a source for um storing minerals, sure,
hard minerals um the marrow. There's two types of mirrow.
There's red marrow where we create blood cells. Red blood
sells yep um. And then there's also yellow marrow, where

(13:03):
we store fat. Yeah, that just sounds gross. Fatty bones,
fatty yellow marrow in our bones sounds cross to me.
Have you ever eaten bone marrow? I know you it's
like the butter of the gods, But have you ever
tried it? No? I guess I should taste it. But yeah,
you're gonna taste it one day. I will see to it.
There's places that you can find bone marrow, and I

(13:28):
urge you to go there. Yeah, you can get on
your burger at a is it farm Burger indicator? Oh yeah,
they do have marrow, don't they. Yeah. I think you
actually ate one with marrow. I'm sure I did. Yeah. Yeah,
I very rarely turned down marrow. Yeah, because I mean you,
you can't find it everywhere, and it's very tough to
screw up marrow. Okay, Well that's good to know anyway.

(13:50):
In my opinion, fatty bone marrow sounds awesome in my
Oh it does not, but I'll try. Did you pick
that up at the folk festival. What in my oh?
I don't think so, I because you've never said it before,
and you said it twice today. I don't. I don't
think that was like the phrase that was sweeping. It

(14:11):
was a banner in the back, behind back in my
O tour. I'm oh, yeah, I'm a I thought you're
saying in my oh, I was. I'm just old and
I don't know how these but I like the variation. Alright,
So hold on, haunt. I'm still I haven't lost my
train of thought yet. I've got it in reserve marrow. Well,
we're past the marrow. The point is, the bone is

(14:33):
a living structure. The thing is um. It can mineralize
since the store of hard minerals. The bone can become
a little too hard because it needs to stay living
as well as rigid um. And so we do bone remodeling.
So this process is basically a three step process. Right,

(14:54):
So you've got the old bone that's become too hard.
Ossified is what it's called. And um it's basically broken
down by a type of um bone cell called osteoclasts. Yeah,
they go around and chomp it up, right, and um
absorb it. There's this part of the process is called resorbtion,

(15:16):
and I guess they leave behind new cells and these
new cells are um, I think they attract something called osteoblasts,
which are a different type of bone cell, and they
generate new bone tissue. That's right, and that is bone remodeling. Uh.
And then you have you know, there's cartilage involve two
and that's where condroblasts come in form the new cartilage.
And between those three types of cells, you are regenerating

(15:40):
your bone and uh, every day basically yes, Okay, so
in the fact that we have this constantly going on,
it's not that big of a deal to your bones
to undertake this process of healing like this is. Those
are the reasons why condro condro blasts, osteoblasts, and osteoclasts
are the reasons why we can regenerate new bone once

(16:03):
we break it. Yeah, and like from the moment you
break your bone, it kind of starts to begin this
process of healing itself, which is pretty great. And if
you were like trapped in the woods and you could
get it set sort of right, you're gonna probably be okay,
Like you don't need a doctor. Well, you need a
doctor in many cases. But before there were doctors, people

(16:24):
still healed broken bones. Yeah, I mean the body does so. Yeah,
And depending on how how well the whole thing went,
you might be totally fine, yeah, or you might walk
with a little hitchen your giddy hill. Right. Yeah. If
it's the Middle Ages, you never know. So when when
a bone breaks, there's the your body undertakes this process
of regeneration. Um. There's three phases, that's right, three phases, right,

(16:49):
and uh, the first phase is the actual break. And
remember there's there's um blood vessels in your bones, yeah,
surrounding the bone. So does break two. Yes, which that
sounds bad, but it's kind of good. It is. The
body says, I'm gonna make lemons lemonade out of the
lemons that have just been dealt. Yeah, I'm bleeding profusely,
but I'm gonna go ahead and take that blood, let

(17:09):
it build up in the fissure in the crack um
and create a cloth. Yeah, which helps. It's called a
fracture hematoma, and that's the beginning of the healing process.
It stabilizes everything, keeps it as lined up as possible,
and cuts off the flow of blood. To those jagged
edges there, right, And since the jagged edges lose blood flow,

(17:30):
they start to die, and so the the I guess
the parts of the fracture that are going to be
the roughest just fall away and are reabsorbed. Yeah right, Yeah,
it's gonna cause the swelling and inflammation because it's like
everything's hard at work. All these cells are hard at
work trying to you know, get all the dead tissue

(17:51):
out of there. Uh. And then little tiny blood vessels
are going to start to grow again. Um, they grow
in the in the claw, so that now all of
a sudden there's a transport system to this area, that's right.
And that takes place over about three or four days.
The sematoma um develops, right, that's right. Um, so that

(18:12):
will develop into you know, it gets tougher as it
goes and it forms something called soft callous um, which
is sort of the beginning of I liken it to
like an internal cast almost right, like the beginnings of it.
And it gets harder and harder as this process goes on. Yeah,
so you and this actually replaces the clock, like the
clock kind of turns into the soft callous right, and

(18:35):
the soft callous is the result of um, these things
called fibroblasts which start producing collagen, and this collagen builds
up and um, that's what develops your soft callous. That's right.
It's kind of like, um, you have your skin, it's
made of collagen. Yeah, it's a protein. Your bones apparently
made of collagen to essentially it's the it's the base

(18:56):
protein for bone and skin color. Where would we be
without collagen? We would just be keeping mess on the floor,
would be in zero's ville zero. Um. And then this
so you've got the soft callous and then the soft
callous is eventually replaced um with something called the fibro
cartilaginous callous yea condroblasts or the cells that helped produce that.

(19:16):
And again this is just a process of hardening and
strengthening as the bones are lined up right, And all
of it started with that hematoma, that clot and it
was it's become replaced and then um, now it's getting
a little harder, it's getting a little tougher, and I
guess you have the fibro cartilage cartilaginous callous that remains

(19:39):
and rather than being replaced by the bone callous the
bone callous builds around it. Yeah, and that's the actual
linking device that links the two pieces of the bone together.
That's the bridge, right. And those osteo blasts that are
responsible for um the bone remodeling that constantly goes on,
they're the ones producing the bone callous and the bone alice.

(20:00):
If the soft callous is the beginning of that initial cast,
this is like the cast that your body builds for
your bone, and it covers the area and allows that
bone regeneration to take place in this completely protected area. Yeah.
So the fibro cartilus callus is a few days, I'm sorry,
a few weeks, and then the hard bone callous is

(20:22):
three or four months. Right. That's why you when you
have a cast on, you have to have your cast
for several months or at least a couple of months,
usually long enough for a distinct Yeah, and it should
get ants inside. Yeah. I remember being a kid and
being jealous of kids who got their cast signed in
things because it was always, you know, the kid would
show up, they get a lot of attention, and everyone

(20:44):
would sign their cast and it was just a big thing.
And I never broke my bone, and I was just
like I want to break a bone. Do you do?
You even remember the Simpsons where Bart has a cast
for the summer Man. It is season two, three four
something like that. It's one of the best ones ever
because simultaneously I think, um, I guess the Simpsons get

(21:04):
a pool too, and everybody's having so much fun in
the pool, but Bart can't get in and there's like
a rear window like rear window thing going on with him. Um, right,
because Jimmy Stuart was in the wheelchair, right yeah, um.
But Millhouse comes over and Bart's like, mill House, my
trust of friends, you won't leave me, Willie, and he's
signing Bart's cast. He's like, I gotta go Bart, and

(21:25):
they show his signature. It says Millpool. Anyway, that's the
Simpsons episode. That's good. It's a good one. And when
I was a kid too that they still had them
early on, they still had the plaster cast you know
that we're really easy to sign, and then they kind
of I don't even know what they're made of now,
but it looks more like, ah, like fibrous, you know.

(21:48):
Whatever's hard. It's harder to sign though. Yeah, it's not
like the old days. No, but don't They have like
designs and colors and stuff they so kids can like
get funky with their casts. I'm sure they do. Actually
I've never seen it, but that makes total sense. Make
broken bones fun like band aids and stuff. All Right, So, um,
we've got our bone callous. That is when the healing

(22:10):
is really going on. That is the stable protection, the
interior cast as it is or as it could be. Right,
and you could leave that alone. Yeah, and like you said,
risk dying or having a lamp or something like that.
You can take a chance if you wanted, right, But
if medical science is anything it's interventionist. So they come
in and they say, we're gonna help this process along

(22:34):
as best as we can. And a lot of times
it's as simple as creating a cast, which basically forms
that protective layer and keeps kids from doing stuff that's
fun while their bone is reproducing itself. Yeah, they're gonna
diagnose you. They're gonna immobilize it with that cast and
make sure it's all in proper alignment. Um, maybe a splint,

(22:58):
maybe a sling, maybe a brace, whatever it takes, depending
on like where the break is, how bad it is,
how old you are, and horrifically. It's probably painful. Yeah,
because your bone, if it's not in alignment, when you
go to see the doctor, they have to make sure
that it is in alignment, which means that they're going
to physically force it back into alignment, which means you're

(23:22):
gonna pass out from the pain if they don't give
you something beforehand. Yeah. I've also heard I should have
looked this up, that if it's not healing right, they'll
rebreak it. Sometimes that true, imagine. Yeah, I've heard that
it seems like a new someone that had that happen
surgical break. Yeah, I think so, I'll have to look
at a medical break. I bet that's happened. Uh, you

(23:44):
might need traction, which um, I never really knew what
traction was. I thought traction was just, hey, I need
to keep my leg elevated for a period of time.
But it's not just that. It's actually weights and ropes
and pulleys like pushing in, pulling constantly to make sure
it stays in alignment and maintains that alignment. Right. So

(24:04):
like if you have um a leg where the break
is trying to go um one, the lower part is
trying to go up and the upper part is trying
to go down. You would have a pully pulling on
the lower part and the upper part pushing on the
upper part, pulling each away, so that it's constantly in alignment. Right,

(24:24):
it's got to be painful, I would imagine. I can't
imagine traction is fun. There is a kind of traction
that bears your last name, Bryant traction. Yes, and it's
as cute as possible. It's for little kids only who
suffered um femur or hip breaks and their tiny little
legs have to both be up in the air at

(24:46):
a ninety degree angle of their pelvis. And it's heartbreakingly
adorably sad uh to see a little kid in Bryant
traction because they're all like four. Um, and I've seen
pictures because I looked up traction And if you want
to see a really disturbing PDF, that's not intended to
be disturbing, it's just forthright medical photos. It's um. Look

(25:10):
go on to Lancaster General College dot E d U
and look up traction and Orthopedic Care by a guy
named Rothicker. And um, it's it's just basically how to
and like different types of traction and attractions kind of
become abandoned largely by the medical profession. It was, you know,

(25:31):
kind of big in the twentieth century and I think
we've kind of outgrown it largely. Um. But there are
some old timey torturific looking at traction devices out there,
like that the head tongs, you know, like an ice
tong they used to deliver like three students delivered ice.
They have those for your head to like hold your

(25:53):
head in in alignment with your spinal column for however
long it needs to be if you break your back.
There's some it's just really kind of weird to see.
But there's little kids in Bryant Attraction and that he uh,
you know, I bet our friends, um, you know, from
my brother and my brother and me, Justin McElroy. He
and his wife now Sidney, who's a doctor, have a

(26:15):
new podcast called Sawbones. Oh yeah, I saw that. It's
really good. It's basically Sitney and Justin are both just
fascinated by antiquated medical practices and that's like the entire podcast.
And I guess you'd probably get that on like bulls Eye, right,
Bull's Eye website, yeah, or or iTunes. It's really good
and they they sweetly said that they were inspired by

(26:36):
us and as far as delivering like educational slash funny podcasts. Sweet. Yeah,
so it's pretty cool. Um yeah, okay, h surgery surgery,
Oh that's another thing. If you are in traction. There's
two kinds of attraction. Their skins attraction, which is basically
like they attached the ropes and the pulleys and stuff

(26:57):
to using medical tape or like a boot or a
sling or something thing. Then there's skeletal traction where they
go in and attach pins, rods, needles to your bone. Yeah,
that's if pretty severe breaks require this. Usually you don't
need surgery to repair a bone, but if you do,
that means you're gonna be getting like bolts and pins
and things inserted to keep everything properly aligned. And while

(27:18):
your in traction, your muscles are doing jack yeah, which
means they atrophy, which means you're gonna have to go
through rehab yeah, which which is good. Like um and rehab,
you know, they specialize in just enough work two build
up your muscle and cartilage and tendons again, but you
still have to respect the break. So it's like it's

(27:40):
a very delicate line. They're walking here with what kind
of rehab you can do? You know? Um, So broken
bones can lead to it's not always just as easy
as your bone is broken, let's HeLa. There can like
the complications you can die from, like a broken hip. Yes, Sadly,
as apparent, only one third of hip related hip break

(28:03):
related deaths are come from that hematoma. Huh, that's sad
And I think probably what happens, um when you have
that fracture hematoma and a hip, you're still moving around
a little bit. So what that's called, though, is a
pulmonary embolism. That's when that clot moves up and blocks
like arteries to your lungs, and that's where the death

(28:26):
results from. Obviously, if you have a compound fracture, infection
is pretty big risk. Uh, if you break ribs, they
can puncture organs or if they're not properly said or
not healing right, they can you know, squeeze out organs
and uh lead to like tissue damage and things like that.

(28:46):
That's no good. And then there's something called fibro dysplasia
assif cans progressive or fo P. It's a genetic condition
with a life expectancy of about forty years of age
and basically chuck that bone remodeling process goes haywire. There's

(29:07):
a genetic mutation to where any kind of trauma to
your tissue triggers bone regeneration at the site, So like
your muscle is turning into bone, your muscle, your skin,
your fat. Those pictures man like it showed a skeleton
bear skeleton that had had had this disease, and it's like,

(29:29):
there's it's like skeleton plus think what you're used to
looking to plus a lot more. Yeah, um, and it's
very sad condition. There's UM. I think there's They believe
only about seven people in the world have fo p
UM and most of them are incorrectly diagnosed with things
like cancer because cancer can do all sorts of wacky

(29:50):
stuff to bones UM as a secondary condition UM, and
so they get all sorts of unnecessary treatment like chemotherapy
and things like that. UM, even when you're having cancer,
even when it is UM correctly diagnosed. It's basically like
parents are forced to choose like, okay, am, I gonna

(30:11):
try to keep you alive as much as possible and
make you live in a bubble or am I gonna say,
you know, I want you to live your life and
you can go out and get a bruise and inoculation, um,
get punched in the arm and all of those things.
Those sites are going to turn to bone. A bruise

(30:32):
creates a bone there at the site, your joints lock
up and then you you lose use of that that limb. Yeah,
I saw the one guy interviewed. It was just like,
you know, he can't walk around, he can't lay down comfortably.
It just really just locks you up. Yeah, it's a
really terrible, horrific condition. But now that they've discovered the

(30:52):
gene mutation associated with it, they really feel like the
next generation of fo P patients are gonna have a
lot better quality of life than the ones alive today. Yeah.
And there's a girl um in Peachtree City who has it,
who's just kind of a plucky survivor. That's here in Georgia.
By the way, how are you not know it's in Georgia.

(31:14):
It's called Peachtree City. That's where everybody drives golf carts around.
Oh really, Yeah, you didn't know that that's the home
of Club Car, the golf cart company. Yeah, and for
some reason, like Peachtree City, I guess to celebrate club
car built a bunch of like paths like all over
the city. That's how you get around down there. From
what I understand, Yeah, well that's neat. Yeah. Uh so

(31:39):
she has it in Peachtree Cities because it's like super
super rare, right, yeah, like seven people worldwide. How's she doing?
She's doing okay. Like I said, she's plucky. From what
I understand that she was the U. The centerpiece of
the article on it that I read on ABC News
called um turned to bone rare condition lacks victims in
second eton um. It's pretty interesting, boy, seeing the attitude

(32:03):
of people that have things like this happened, Like that's
the inspiration, right we had. I don't know if you
saw the email a guy wrote in yesterday that cut
off four of his fingers with a table saw and
UM had medical leeches used as part of the thing,
and like sending pictures. It was really gnartly. Oh I
missed that. But this guy was like smiling in the
picture and he's like, you know what, A lot worse

(32:24):
things can happen. He's like they weren't able to reattach
the fingers I got a nub I can still play
bass guitar with. And he's got this really really rad
artificial finger that he sent a picture of, like a
robotic finger. And uh again, just like the attitude, Emily
always make jokes about them, like the living will and

(32:47):
you know, like, what do you want to do in
case the situations I'm like, if I break a few
bones and I'm in traction, I was like, just go
ahead and put me out there. I'm just the biggest
complainer and was like, with that stuff, I need to
work on my my attitude. In case of like bad
situations like that, you should probably specify on record put
you out means like kill you or like give you

(33:08):
a bunch of drugs. Oh, right, because that's that could
lead to a lot of disagreement later on, a right
could lead to some good times. Right, that will change
your attitude? Get anything else? That's it? Man. Oh by
the way, Evil Kinevel did not break every bone in
his body. That's look that up. That's not true. Really

(33:30):
now he broke apparently thirty five bones' career. That's not
that much, which is that's a lot. He also used
to punch out like reporters he didn't like, apparently, and
break bones in his hand doing so. I guess McConaughey
was going to play him in a biopic. At one
point I thought that was pretty good casting. Who else, Yeah, biopic?
Maybe Josh Lucas. What's wrong with biopic? Biopic? That's that's

(33:54):
what that's by. We've had this conversation before, what whether
it's biopic or biopic? And what did we settle in?
I say biopic, and I said biopic, but I think
I just said biopic. Maybe you know you said biopic? Jerry,
can we get a ruling? Jerry says no, I wasn't
paying attention. I got nothing else. Then, okay, well that's

(34:15):
broken Bones. That was a good one. Yeah, I think so.
I never really knew. I mean, I knew they healed themselves.
But it's a pretty fascinating stuff and if you want
to learn more about it, you can check out this
article by Robert Lamb on how Stuff Works dot com.
Um just type in broken bones and it will bring
it up. And since I said Robert Lamb, that means
it's time for message break. Now, how's about some listener mail? Chuck? Yeah,

(34:45):
this is from a female rugby player, so it probably
fits with broken bones. I bet she's broken a bone.
And I didn't know that ladies played rugby, so I
was happy to learn this. Hey, guys, I want to
say first off that I think yell are incredible. Love
the podcast, dig the show, thoroughly enjoy all the fun
newsletter emails I get from you to help break up
the day at work. Oh yeah, we should tell people

(35:06):
you can subscribe to our newsletter. Yeah, it's pretty awesome.
It's just kind of like a rundown and stuff we've
come up with that week, um articles, links of the podcast, video,
good way to stay in the loop. Yeah, I'm not
exactly sure how you sign up for that though. Really
hold on, Actually I do know where it is, Chuck.
You can go to our Facebook page and sign up.
I should know that there's a link on the Facebook

(35:26):
page for our newsletter, so just click that and add
your information. And I believe there's a no spam guarantee,
and of course it's not illegally binding guarantee, but I
think like there's no spam associated with it. Oh cool, Yeah, alright,
like all you get is the newsletter. Nice. Well, thank
you Jamie for polling that out and thank you for
enjoying the newsletter, So she continues, I am writing to

(35:47):
ask for a favor on something I know you guys
have to do, but I figure I have nothing to lose.
I play for our women's rugby team in Chicago, called
the Chicago Sirens. Rugby is a newish sport for me,
but I have to say it's one of the most
fun things I've done since moving here. Anyway, our team
has been invited to play in the Safari Sevens tournament

(36:09):
in Nairobi, Kenya, which is an extreme privilege. Uh. The
Safari Sevens is Africa's premier rugby tournament and is open
only to teams that receive formal invitations and draw crowds
of over people. Wow. We are currently the only US
team that's been invited to play in the tournament, which
is awesome. Uh. In addition, we are the first women's

(36:29):
team outside of Africa to ever receive an invitation to play,
and it's really cool opportunity for US. That is an
extreme well, what what'd you say, an extreme way privilege? Yeah? Okay.
The only problem is, guys, we are a self funded team,
the news catch and UH we have a ton of
fundraising to do in order to get ourselves there. Because

(36:50):
you think she was just bragging, Now I knew. Would
you guys be willing to mention our tour website on
your Facebook page or on Twitter for sure, or better yet,
on the podcast first? So you got it, she says,
I know it's a total long shot, but this trip
would be like a dream come true and a girl's
gotta try. Um, your Kenyon bound fan, Jamie, So Jamie,

(37:11):
here's your plug if you guys want to help support
women's rugby and uh get them to Africa based participate
USA for this, Yeah, pretty much. Um, you can go
to Sirens Safari number seven s. So it's seven's but
it's the number seven instead of spelling it out, so

(37:33):
s I R E N S s A f A
r I number seven s Safari sevens dot webs dot com.
So once again, that is Sirens Safari sevens number seven
dot webs dot com. Man, they should have made it
easier to know, kidding you're in there. Um, so that's

(37:55):
you know the U r L and uh, boy, I
hope you raise your funds. That'd be really needs to
be the USA support Women's Rugby, go help them. Everybody
donate a few shekels. As Mark Marin would say, that's
very nice. Yeah wait um quote married, sure, I'll the words. Yeah,
that's a good one. Um. Let's see if you as
always have a charity, a group that needs help that

(38:21):
we can try to rally everybody for. We're always out
to hear that kind of thing. Yeah, no promises because
we get a lot of them. But um yeah, you know,
like she said, girls gotta try. We'll do what we can. Uh.
And if you have a broken bones story, you might
as well send it to us. Why not? You can
tweet to us at That's Why sk podcast. You can

(38:42):
join us on Facebook dot com and sign up for
a newsletter at Facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know.
You can send us an email The Stuff podcasts at
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on the web Stuff you Should Know dot com. For
more on this and thousands of other topics, visit how

(39:02):
Stuff works dot com. Yah brought to you by the
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