Her Middle Name is Most Definately NOT Grace

My daughter is referred to as my “mini-me” alot.  We look alike.  We act alike.  We share many similar behavioral traits in addition to our physical traits.  I can’t think of one thing that we are not alike in, including our non-ability to be graceful.

I can trip over nothing.  So can she.  I can walk into things.  So can she.

We’re just talented like that.

We make people look at us, shake their heads, make sure we’re okay and then laugh their heads off.

Laughter is truly the best medicine and we’re medicating people one fall at a time.

There should be a Nobel Peace Prize for that.  We would be the recipients every year.

Last night, I was sitting here editing a video to enter in a contest.  It might have had something to do with a song with a name like “Baby Got Back” but I convinced the kids that we should do this.  Sam had a friend over and we were having a good time.

What?

That’s not what you do on a Thursday night at midnight?  I would’ve never known.

Anywho, after we shot the video, the kids scurried out of the office to remove their bling and other assorted costume items and I sat down in my chair that has been ripped to shreds by our cat to commence the video editing, a task that I have a love/hate relationship with.

No sooner did I finish, and begin to upload the video to YouTube, waiting anxiously so that I could post the link and enter the contest, quite pleased with the end result, I heard a horrible scream come from the middle room.

Samara came out to the office and could barely speak which she stood in front of me with her hand clenched to her chest.

There was no doubt about it, these were real tears.

And real tears?  I can’t handle.  Those fake ones?  The oh, I really want attention so I’ll sit here and whine and cry and milk it for all it’s worth?  I can handle those.  I simply ignore them, tell them that a band-aid is only for hurts that are bleeding and send them on their way.

Mother of the year material, I am.  ::snort::

As I try to calm her down, and look at her hand, she keeps screaming as if someone has cut it off and by the time she finally tells me what happens and shows me her hand, I knew immediately that something wasn’t right.

Now, here’s where I HATE how my brain works.

When she showed me her hand, my first thought was “Live Long and Prosper” because I’m dead serious when I tell you that her fingers were naturally falling that way.  So, I know that something is wrong.  But even still, I make her show me her good hand so that I can compare.

I’m inspecting, poking, prodding, and in essence causing her way more pain than I probably should have because I needed to rule out a trip to the emergency room.  And please know, it’s not because I don’t care that my daughter is in severe pain but who wants to go to the ER?  At 12:30 at night?   When you have a houseguest? And when you’re supposed to be up for middle school orientation and get three kids around and out the door by 8:30?

Feel my pain?  I thought so.

So I did what any mother who has never had a broken bone in her life does… I called my friend, the nurse, and woke her up.

Friend:  Hello?

Me:  Hey.  I don’t mean to wake you up, but um, how do you know if you’ve broken a finger?

Friend:  What did you do?

Me:  It’s not me.  It’s Sam.

Friend:  What happened?

Me:  Well, I was sitting here editing a video because entering a contest at midnight is what most people do when their child was entrusted to their care and they just left the office and Sam fell up the stairs and into the wall and now she’s screaming and she looks like Spock.

Friend:  Spock?

Me:  Yeah, like her fingers look like Spock, Live Long and Prosper

Friend:  Is it swollen?

Me:  No.

Friend:  Can she move her fingers?

Me: (to Sam) Can you move your fingers?

Sam:  Shakes head no

Me:  Can you really not move them or does it hurt to move it?

Sam:  (trying to move her fingers) It hurts.

Me: (to my friend) She can kinda move them.

Friend:  Well, if it’s not swollen and she can move it than it’s not broken.  Ice it and look at it in the morning.

Me:  Ok.  Go back to sleep.

So I get off the phone with her and I go to find the ice pack, which at our house is a bag of frozen peas and corn.  However, the peas and corn has been frosted and defrosted one too many times, so I loaded her and her friend up in the car and we headed to Walgreens.

Yes, at one o’clock in the morning.  In their pajamas.

We bought some instant ice packs and coffee creamer and doughnuts, since we were there, and we came home.  I put the kids to bed and iced her hand and gave her motrin.

This morning, I got the kids up and the moment she pulled her hand out from under the covers, I wanted to faint.

I mean, faint.

On the floor.

It was blue.

It was HUGE.

That doesn’t even do it justice…

So I walked right out to my desk and called the doctor to make an appointment feeling really crappy that I didn’t take her to the ER hours before.

In fact, at the doctor’s office when my friend saw it, I looked at her and asked, “I should’ve taken her to the ER last night, shouldn’t I have?”

She told me that it wouldn’t have made a difference.

Dr. Payne (lovely name for a doctor, don’t you think?) examined it and sent us for x-rays.  You know that your child has a GREAT injury when the nurses and doctors and xray techs ask what the problem is and when they see the injury they give this “eew” response.

And what’s even better is that every person we talked to asked her what happened and she would respond with “I fell up the stairs and into the wall trying to go to the bathroom” and we would all ROLL.  I mean, tears in our eyes, laughing.

I was embarrassed the first time she told people.  It would’ve been much cooler to say, “I was skateboarding down the street and fell” or “I was in the middle of a fierce game of soccer and it happened” but have to admit that it was MUCH better than her telling people that I beat her or something, which is ALWAYS my fear.  Especially since Matthew is a walking bruise, Lord knows what those people thought I did to my children.  I just kept throwing words like football and soccer around so they would know that we are a sport family.

But, I love Dr. Payne.  When we were not back in 30 minutes, he called down there looking for us.  We were quickly ushered back to the room and the pictures of the spock hand were taken.

When we went back to Dr. Payne’s office, he told us that she had an angular fracture and that because of the way that it was broken, we had to go see an orthopedic doctor.

Great.

Did you know that I’m in the middle of switching insurance companies?  All I can think about is how this is going to slip through the cracks and not about how it shouldn’t matter what this costs because if you don’t take care of this your child could potentially be Spock’s stunt double for the rest of her life.

The orthopedic doctor came in, looked at her hand, told me that because of her age and the way that it was fractured that some tape for four weeks would do the trick, handed me two rolls of tape for my trouble, and was ready to send me on my way.

“Could you show me how to tape it up before we leave?” I had to ask.  I mean seriously?  All this money the guy is making he could at least tape up my kid’s bruised and broken fingers.  So he did and then Sam posed the question about soccer.

“Well, are you competitive?” he asked.  “I like to win,” she replied.

“Are you the goalie?”

“No, I’m a midfielder.” she responded matter-of-factly.

“Then you can play, just tape up three fingers instead of two.  I want that finger to be supported,” he told her.

I was floored.  She was ecstatic that she won’t have to miss her first EIGHT AM game tomorrow.  I was a little bummed, I’ll be honest, because eight am?

I’m not even UP at 8am, let alone, alert and moving at that time.

But she’s ready.

And I’m convinced that we’ll be back at the ER before four weeks is up…

Until next time…