From the email archve: 02/09/11

This email to my friends and family was titled "The ER isn't supposed to be fun".

So last night I spent a couple of hours in the ER with First Son (16yrs).  At dinnertime, he was leaning over a chair to put something on a counter, rested his knee on the seat and the whole thing collapsed beneath him.  Instantly, side and the back side of his ribs had a massive bruise which looked like someone had been dragged over asphalt.  It was about a foot long and about 8inches wide.  Around 7pm, Husband asked "Are we being bad parents by not taking him to the emergency room?" and we remembered that we had insurance now.  Before, if you weren't on the brink of death, it would wait.  But since it wasn't going to cost us a dime, I decided that for once, I'd be a good mom and drug the kid down to the ER.

The waiting room was mostly uneventful.  It was crowded, and I was struck by a young man who didn't look any older than 18 or 19, and the woman he was with.  He was a good looking young man, and he was very, very solicitous of a woman who, at first,  looked like an older sister.  Most of her dark brown hair was gone, with only long thin bunches around her head.  I didn't want to stare, so I didn't get a good look at her, but at a glance, she looked like most people do when they've been ill for a long time- bedraggled and not at their best.  But this young man sat as close to her as the bucket seats would allow, had one armed wrapped around her the whole, tucked her in as close as he could and held her.  And he'd whisper to her, rub her arm and occasionally kiss the top of her head.  It was one of those hearwarming moments that put your faith back into the male species.

But First Son and I sat there for over an hour, I with my kindle and he with a big screen tv.  The waiting room slowly cleared out until there was only one other man and us.  First Son complained about how long it was taking, and how he was bored and I said how at home I'd made the comment that it could take anywhere from 30 minutes to 3 hours and how he didn't listen to me because mom doesn't know anything, but I warned him and he could have brought a book and he kept insisting "I thought you were joking!" and I said how Dad even agreed with me when I said it and he reiterated "I thought you were joking!" So I offered him my kindle and he said "No mom, I'm not going to take your kindle" and I said I don't mind so he said "Then you won't have anything to do" and I said I was perfectly content with twiddling my thumbs, I've gotten used to it and he said "No, I'm not going to take your kindle" and I held it out to him and asked "Are you sure?  I Share" and First Son said that there wasn't anything on there for him to read anyways, and so I told him that I'd downloaded all of Edgar Allen Poe and he said he wasn't in the mood to get depressed, so I told him he could read Dracula and reminded me that we had told him he couldn't read that until we did, and I reminded him that that was a few years ago, and I'm sure it would probably be all right now.

By now, the other gentleman in the waiting room was having a really hard time not laughing at us.  I heard him snicker and saw out of the corner of my eye how he was trying not to smile, and it wasn't working so great. I told First Son, "ok, I'd offered," and he went back to watching White Collar.

So his name gets called and Mr Slow Poke starts meanding toward the nurse, so I stop and push him ahead of me and keep jabbing him the back like I'm poking cattle just to get him to keep up with the nurse.  So he complains about how I'm pushing him and I tell him to get a move on.  We get to his allotted curtain area and I head for the wheely padded stool-type chair next to the wall and he jumps up on the gurney and instead of sitting there on the edge like most people, he gets all the way on, lays back and stretches out and puts his hands under head.  *rolls eyes*

The nurse starts hooking him up to the all the gizmos, and he's been to the doctor so little, he has no clue what he's supposed to do, so there I am prompting him "She needs your hand, she's putting that doo-hicky in your finger"  "open your mouth, that's a thermometer" and the doo-hickey in his finger suddenly becomes a robotic finger of some sort, which he's waving around.  The nurse gets all his information and leaves and he folds his fingers over his stomach and closes his eye and I start to read.

That lasts for thirty seconds before he starts singing.  I told him to rest and he said he couldn't and I said he didn't try hard enough and he said he was bored.  He tells me to read to him, so I tell him I had a book called Mrs Tiggy Wiggy by Beatrix Potter on there and he has fun making fun of the name Mrs Tiggy Wiggy until I pull it up and realize it's Mrs Tiggy Winkle, which he feels is infinitely better because it doesn't rhyme.  So I open it up and start to read it to him, but he assures me emphatically that he was joking, and he didn't need to hear about Mrs Tiggy Wiggy and I said it's Mrs Tiggy Winkle and he said he didn't need to hear about her either.  So I got out of that book, pulled open another one and began "Once Upon a Midnight Dreary, while I pondered weak and weary over many a quaint and curios volume of..." and interrupts and says he's NOT in the mood for depressing and morose or creepy, and that he was JUST JOKING about me reading to him.  So I get out of The Raven by Poe and pull up another book and get two sentences in about the Admiral Benbow when First Son interrupts and says "Mom, I've already read that one!" but I keep reading for a few more sentences anyway just to annoy him.

By now, I'm in a *really* silly mood, and First Son's bad English accent that he'd adopted for his arguing wasn't helping any.  So the doctor shows up and looks at the bruise and pokes him a few times and says that they don't even do X-Rays for this kind of injury because small hairline fractures won't show up on one, and that they diagnose it as (and he insterted airquotes here) clinical fracture or (more airquotes) clinical bruising, and that you treat it the same way.

If it hurts- don't do it.

rotfl!!!!  He said he'd write a perscription for some pain meds, and to use Ibuprophen and he assured First Son that he would be in massive, terrible pain the morning.  And that he'd get three weeks off school... just kidding!!!  which made First Son lament the fact that he was homeschooled and so even if the doctor HADN'T been joking, it wouldnt' have applied to him.  But then it occured to him "Wait... do I have to go to Seminary tomorrow morning?" which I told him that if he was hurting really badly, no he didn't have to go.  But then he narrowed his eyes and said "If I miss Seminary, does that mean I'll miss the dance tomorrow night as well?"  in which I assured him that yes, if he was in too much pain to go sit in a classroom, he'd be in too much pain to go *dancing*.  So that's when I knew he'd make it to Seminary today if he had to crawl.

The nurse showed up with the perscription for Vicoden and the discharge paperwork, but she wanted to take his vitals one last time (don't ask me why, they don't usually do that) so she starts hooking him up to the machines again and I'm making silly comments to him, and he's shooting imaginary targets with his robotic finger "ptchoo!  ptchoo ptchoo!" and we're both snickering and the nurse is trying not to laugh at us.  You'd think we'd been drinking or something the way we were behaving.

We finally got out of there close to 9pm.  So. Yeah.  That's my ER story from last night.

First Entry!

This very first entry happened yesterday, and another member of the Fluffy Bunnies (go look at my "about me") told me I needed to save it for my blog that I was thinking about.  This stems from being the only woman in a household of 8 (including the dog) and not being incredibly feminine myself.

So I got into a mood yesterday and painted my fingernails.  When I walked out of my bedroom, the boys notice and Second Son (14 yrs) says "But... that's so *girlie*."  And I had to tell him "That's because I'm A GIRL!" 

Sheesh. 

And then I was reading a book to Fourth Son (3yrs), who interupted and put his finger on my barely dried nail and asked "Whas dat?"  and I said that I colored my nails and he says "Is owee."  And I said, no, it's just paint and he said "It hurt."  He never did believe me that I didn't have an owee.