27 November 2014

Groundhog Day (At the Emergency Room Again)


Another day goes by without me writing my Hunger Games Party post. Today was going to be the day, but gravity intervened - SOMEBODY needed to visit the A&E* to get their big toe x-rayed.
Any guesses as to WHO might have required medical attention this time? Anyone? Anyone???

OK, no prizes for guessing. It is - of course - Miss Fab. The girl who lives her life in a whirlwind, who regularly tangles with gravity; the girl who has her very own cast collection and a stack of ACC letters that could keep a bonfire burning for days.

Yeah I'm exaggerating, but only a little. There have in fact been THREE (count 'em) White Cross A&E visits in the past month. A week and a half on crutches with a pinched nerve in her ankle. An infected bug bite and now, the icing on a the cake: an actual broken bone.

But wait there's more. Along with the usual inconvenience of hours lost in waiting rooms and the chance to catch up on celebrity gossip in old doctor's office mags, this injury also comes with a helping of mummy guilt too.

Because this injury occurred yesterday, people.
The school called (yesterday), and said the Fab had injured her toe but "no need to come get her, she's fine."
Problem: she was not fine.
She was in fact hobbling around on a badly broken toe.
This morning, still unable to walk on it, she begged me to take her for yet-another-xray (and I resisted with all my might, thinking of my to-do list), so she turned to her daddy for backup. Daddy examined the (swollen) appendage and pronounced, "It looks bad. You need to take her."

He was right. I DID need to take her. But if he hadn't insisted, guess what? I probably WOULDN'T have taken her.


See, I have spent far too many hours of my life this year already in that gosh darned waiting room.
I have stood by as x-ray after x-ray turned out to be "just a sprain".

I cringe when I walk in that A&E door. I worry that somebody is going to flag the number of ACC injuries this ONE CHILD has against her name. More than fifteen in the last five years, FIVE of them just THIS YEAR.

I admit it, I was embarrassed and I was busy so I was reluctant. And I left a girl with a SEPARATED GROWTH PLATE in her toe to hobble around, undoctored, for 24 hours.

Like I said, a nice helping of mummy guilt with this injury!

Luckily my girl is very forgiving. She has happily put aside her crossness at my resistance as soon as she got the verdict: A broken toe.
A nice helping of I-told-you-so is all it took: "I can't believe I have a broken toe! And you didn't believe me! Well, you DID believe me, you just didn't want to go to A&E..."

There's a splint, some strapping, a borrowed moon boot and a return appointment to the fracture clinic next Thursday. Three weeks in the splint. But then the kicker: NO SPORT FOR 2-3 MONTHS.


There were real tears shed right then, as she realised what this means.

The Fab has just been selected for the Elite level Cheerleading team at our club. She was so excited at starting training with her new team ("I'm an ELITE cheerleader!") on Monday.
Then there's the fact she's meant to be starring in a solo dance in the finale of our church kids Christmas production.

"No Sport" means no Cheerleading, NO DANCING. No cartwheels, no biking, no swimming, no trampolining... all the things my whirlwind loves to do, because she just hates to sit still.

Poor girlie. What a suckie time of year for a broken toe.

Ahhhh so there you have it. Another day in the life of a whirlwind. Ouch.

Anybody else out there have a kid like mine???

MORE FAB ACCIDENT STORIES:
The Life and Times of Action Girl (a recap of all Miss fab's White cross adventures)


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