I'VE HAD MORE WRECKS in my life than I can count. A bad concussion from a rockslide while climbing a mountain in the Black Hills when I was five years old. A broken collarbone fighting with my grade-school nemesis atop a fence. Multiple concussions and a broken back in gymnastics, Mom always there, nursing me through some rough nights. Broken toes in karate. Broken hand and cheekbone bicycling across South Africa, my brothers surprised at the pumpkin sound my head made when it hit the pavement. Broken ribs alpine-climbing. Broken leg telemark-skiing, which required a plate and six screws to put back together. A torn biceps tendon ice-climbing. A triple hernia from carrying heavy packs in the Himalayas. A shattered shoulder mountain-biking, two bones sawed off and cobbled back together.

Not to mention all the frostbite, altitude sickness and diseases, the punctures, incisions, and stitches, the number of times I went too far in northern Burma, eventually splitting my mind into unidentifiable pieces. The truth is, physical injuries can often be less devastating than mental injuries. When your mind is broken, it is impossible to recognize that the pain and terror you are experiencing are surmountable. Sometimes this can be too much to bear. Hope is healing. Without it, everything goes unspeakably black.

Now: a mangled wrist.

I deserved it all. In every case, I was inattentive to something critical. I realize this is a failure of character, but I have not been able to correct it.

Most people do not deserve their afflictions. The daughter with AIDS. The mother with Alzheimer's. The brother crippled by a drunk driver. The father with inoperable cancer. The 16-year-old girl in Iraq, legless from a smart bomb. They are all victims of the unfathomable cruelty of fate.

But me—I've deserved every accident that's felled me. They have been good for me, every single one. An accident is a cryptic message. Your body is just the messenger. And it's up to your heart to decipher the meaning.