dailydiatribes

You know how sometimes when your child complains, you totally ignore him or her and just hope he or she will go away and leave you alone?  Like when your child has a stick lodged in her eye and she's whining about it and all you want to do is finish watching "Young and the Restless" so you tell her to go put a bandaid on it and quit crying?  And then later you find out that it was really bad and you should have jumped up right then and there and taken her to the hospital because now she has to have her left eye, part of her brain and 1/3 of her ear removed, all because you ignored her?  Well that sort of happened to me.

A few weeks ago, Abby started complaining about her ankle.  I asked her what she had done to it and she did not remember doing anything to hurt it.  So I proceeded to ignore her.  A huge tactical error on my part.  The problem with her is she is impervious to pain.  If she falls down and starts crying, I call the paramedics, because I know it's life threatening.  She makes Lou Gehrig look like a sissy. 

But for some reason, I ignored her complaints about her ankle.  True, it was swollen, but she was walking, even running, on it, so I knew it wasn't slowing her down.  "You probably rolled it," I told her.  "So suck it up and deal with it."  Words that would come back to haunt me.

Last week, she started complaining about the pain.  So I grudgingly called the doctor, whined a lot, and they worked her in to their schedule.  When we arrived, I presented them with the x-rays Tim had lovingly taken.  What's the point of owning an x-ray machine if you can't occasionally x-ray your family members?  There was a spot on the x-ray he wasn't sure about, but as he pointed out, human children have more growth plates than dogs, so it might be normal.

Well, the nurse took a look, said she needed more views, but thought she saw a chipped bone.  The guilt started bearing down upon me.  Probably, it was more than a chipped bone.  Probably, it was a compound spiral fracture and fragments of bone had already entered her blood stream and were racing toward her heart to kill her.  And I had told her to suck it up.  Great parenting; Dr. Spock would be so proud.

They took her for x-rays and then the doctor came in and examined her ankle.  He pulled it and prodded it and she squirmed uncomfortably.  I watched the pain my child was in and mentally vowed to take her shopping to make up for it.  Finally he addressed the problem.  Yes, it was just a bad sprain, he told me and I mentally wiped my brow in relief. 

However, he went on to say, she had evidence of an old injury where she had CHIPPED OFF PART OF THE BONE!!!  The guilt returned in full force, and I almost fell to the ground under the weight of it.  Not only had I ignored this injury, I had evidently ignored a previous one, one that had actually resulted in maiming her.  How could I live with this.

He prescribed a brace and a month of physical therapy.  After a month, he would recheck her.  About 50% of the time, the PT does the trick, he said.  But if it doesn't, the next step is surgery.  By now, I was gasping for air.  What had I done to this poor, sweet child???  How could I, the original over-reacting hypochondriacal parent, miss an injury like that???  Was I so busy monitoring her for signs of leukemia that I overlooked the obvious?  Apparently I am not the good parent I thought I was. 

I thanked him meekly and I slunk out of the office, Abby hobbling behind me in her new brace.  Well, ok, she actually was about ten yards ahead of me because she walks so darn fast I can't keep up with her.  We got to the car and headed immediately for the Galleria.  There was no amount of money to assuage my guilt, but a shopping spree is at least a good start.  There's something about the air in Abercrombie that restores health to my child.  I will keep you posted on her progress and a fund will be opened in her name to pay for the physical therapy, as well as my psychiatric sessions for dealing with the guilt.  We also accept major credit cards and Pay Pal, with a valid driver's license.  Operators are standing by, so call now!!!