Last year when I picked up my 12-year old son from football practice, he was complaining about pain in his elbow. Do you have any kids? If you have kids you KNOW what a hypochondriac is. There's a new damn ailment every.single.fricken.day. He's always complaining about his knee or his some stupid paper cut or some other phantom injury. So, naturally, I ignored this elbow pain.
As I'm preparing dinner I tell the boy to go sit down at the table and do his homework. He complies. Hmmmm...that's weird. Since when doesn't he fight me on having to do menial unimportant things like homework? This is very curious. I can see that he's very quietly writing his math equations, albeit at a very strange writing angle. Er...
ME: C'mere boy.
Son: [comes over to the stove]
Me: [big dramatic sighhhhh] Okay, so what's this about your arm hurting? How'd you hurt it?
Son: [holding his upper arm in his other hand] I dunno. When I went to tackle one kid, my arm kinda snapped backwards. And now my elbow hurts.
Me: [overly dramatic eye rolling] Lemme see...huh. [touching around the elbow] Ummmm. wait. Is that a bone sticking out right there?
Son: [shrug} I dunno. It just kinda hurts.
Me: [grabbing my purse] CARRRRRMEN! Get in the car!! We need to take your brother to the hospital.
We go the nearest Urgent Care clinic. The doctor examines him and says, "I think it's just probably a tendon or a bad sprain" and it's funny because as much inner hate and torture that I was wanting to unleash on the doctor, I very calmly said, "no. It's broken. I need you to take an x-ray. I know my son's bones and this one isn't right."
After the x-ray came back, the doctor declared that the elbow was, indeed, broken and son would likely need a cast or surgery.
Moral of this story: if your child is holding how own limb, probably you should call a doctor.
I am loathe to admit this, but I have a similar story for my daughter.... When my daughter was about 16 mos old, she had the flu. It was such a wicked flu that she wouldn't really eat anything and she'd barf up the meds I was trying to give her to keep her fever down. I did still take her to day care because I had to work, but they called me and said to come get her because she was just unnaturally listless and wouldn't eat. I spent the next 2 days on the couch with her trying to keep her cool and shoving Advil bullet suppositories up her rectum. Poor little cherub looked horrible...she was all sad and she'd look at me like "hhhhelllpppp mmmeeee....." and I just sat there shoving weird shit into her and waiting for the fever to break. I can't remember what the reason was....maybe someone suggested it...but I finally took her to the hospital affiliated urgent care up the street.
Me: [with baby in the stroller] Hi, I need my baby checked out. She's had the flu for a few days and she just isn't doing well.
Doctor: Let's see here....
Baby: gggguuuuuuu *HURL*
Doctor: OH! OH dear!!
Me: OMG! That's just NASTY! What is that?! She hasn't even eaten in 2 days! Is that...soup??
Doctor: Let's get a towel.... No, that's not soup. That's phlegm. Please go downstairs for an immediate chest x-ray. I believe your daughter has pneumonia.
Me: [deer in the fucking headlights]
-after the chest x-ray-
Doctor: [looking slightly smug and judgy] Yes, just as I suspected. Your daughter has pneumonia. Please take this envelope of chest x-rays and drive immediately to the hospital.
And so that's the story of how we almost spent Christmas in the hospital. Three or so days of IV treatment and they sprung us on Christmas Eve.
Moral of THAT story? Pay a-goddam-tention to your kid.
Signed, World's Most Unmaternal Mom
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