Monday, April 10, 2017

Gotta love THAT phone call...


By now the entire literate world knows our big kids are testing this spring for their black belts in karate. This makes them "candidates" and we're really excited for them. 

So last Monday I'm doing the usual tidying up post-weekend and am sprawled over the dog as I brush out her tumbleweeds when my out-of-reach cell phone rings. I almost ignored it and got in the shower anyway, because let's face it, I just am not going to live a life tethered to my phone. It's not who I am. I don't call anyone if I can possibly help it. 

Then my gut grumbles, "aw, it's probably the school." It meant the elementary school because that's where Things Two and Three spend their days, and if anyone was having a meltdown or some bordering-on-the-unbelievable accident, my money was on either of them. Or both.

Nope.

Maybe that's what they mean by, "don't let your feelings become the facts." Ha.

The voicemail runs something like this: hi, uh, Mom? Y'know how you said since I'm a candidate it'd be a bad time to get hurt? Sorry. Yeah, I sprained my ankle. Can you come get me?"

*insert colorful metaphors here, cuz that's what I did*

I get her and the story goes like this. She was headed down the stairs, got hooded from behind (though she swears this was unrelated), WAS HOLDING THE RAILING, DAD, clipped the stair overhang wrong so twisted her ankle to the left, then rammed into the next stair down which twisted the ankle to the right, then went down some stairs on her nonexistent bum, all while still holding on to the railing. A friend hauled her up and had to pry her hand off the railing because she was clenching it so hard. 

So my brain pipes up, "remember all those urgent care commercials on the radio that say they can treat stuff for less and for faster? Remember sitting in the ER when Damon stuffed the bead up his nose?"

Right. We head to urgent care, sign in, are seen, finally are asked what the problem is and then are informed that their Xray machine is down. They give us a scrip to head to the outpatient Xray wing at the hospital where she is in and out in probably a half hour including wait times.

We call the urgent care for the results (that's what the ER folks told us to do) and get the news: normal, no fractures.

So air cast goes on and we do the recommended RICE- rest, ice, compress, elevate. She stayed home the rest of the day and skipped Tuesday because she felt it was too stiff to try walking on. Since the kid rarely misses school and their big state tests were going to be Wednesday and Thursday, I figured we could let it slide since they're probably not working them really hard pre-tests. Of course, that means that my Monday was totally derailed between school/urgent care/ER and I had a patient on Tuesday in between all my errands. 



She skipped all her karate classes for the week (and that is why I make you go more often than you need so, so that you have the backup classes under your belt during a catastrophe, charming daughter) and then she and her brother both aced their second of three (self defense) black belt tests.

Well done, you two. Her partner was super sweet and considerate of her injury as she went to the test wearing the air cast for extra support. I kept telling her that someday she'll have to say, "sorry, Mr. Attacker, can you take it a little easier on me cuz I was in a cast for my black belt test and Savannah was not enough of a bully..." I think those two grinned at each other the whole way through the test. I should probably mention Savannah is already a black belt and is testing for her next degree and Carrie is a twig who could easily be snapped over Savannah's knee...

So anyway, all is mended and we are that much closer to having black belts in the house. I suppose the lesson is to grow a bum because there's no guarantee that the railing will come to your rescue.

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