We can laugh…or we can cry!

Yeah, I seem to have a lot of those days!  I've been trying to find time to write about my youngest, the Drama Queen, but that will have to wait for another blog. Cause today was one of those days! You know, the kind where you have to take a child to school in tears and try and make it better while you rush off because you're late for an appointment because you haven't been able to walk for a week…or two….or, well, anyway.

And then, on the way to the appointment, you get a phone call. It's another child's dentist calling, saying that the insurance will not pay for the anesthesia or facility for dental surgery because it isn't a covered benefit. And so you call, while still rushing to your appointment, only to be told that it is a covered benefit, but only if your child is five, not eight.  And of course, the Drama Queen hears the conversation, so as you walk into your appointment, late, she breaks into tears and tells the receptionist that she is going to have to have dental surgery while she is awake. And they feel sorry for her and give her candy and Kleenexes and nod at you in understanding without questioning why you're late.

And you take a seat…and you wait.  And you can't complain, because, well, you were also late. So you wait.

And you finally make it back to the room and explain to the nurse what is going on. And then this young med student walks in, and asks you to describe the pain in your foot. And you ask him if he is training…and you find out he's the doctor. Really. Even though he looks like he's only 21, he's actually 39…and well, it's not fair. Cause you don't look that young and your body is falling apart.

And so, you describe the pain, and he informs you that is consistent with the x-rays that he's looked at. And that you have fractured your foot, "a good inch and a half" a while ago.

"Oh?" you say, "Like possibly in July when you took those teens to camp and had to run and run and run?"

"No," he says, "As in you had to have whacked it really hard around a year ago."

"What?"

And he continues to ask you in disbelief that you couldn't possibly have known that you fractured your foot? He repeats that it's a big fracture and it would have hurt and taken a "good whack!" And you repeat that you honestly don't remember whacking it. Really. It just started hurting and sometimes worse than others, and now it's so bad that it's hard to walk. He just nods his young head at you.

He goes on to say that the rest of your foot is now trying to compensate and so that's why you hurt so bad. And then he tells you that you have to come back next week so they can cast your foot. And you proceed to freak out and inform him, rather forcibly, that you cannot possibly have a cast on your foot because you have no life other than taking children to and from school and to and from appointments…and you have to walk your niece and nephew to and from school everyday and crutches just won't work.

And when you take a breath, he informs you that the cast is for a mold of your foot for inserts. And that you'll have to wear closed toed shoes. You ask if it will work on flip flops and try to explain to him that,

"Doc, I have to be honest with you. I don't like to wear shoes. At all."

And he informs you that you'll have to change that if you want your foot to stop hurting. You're thrilled that you won't have to wear a cast after all and that these magical inserts will heal the fracture!

"You're wrong," he says. "Those expensive thingies won't heal the fracture, they'll just fix the rest of the foot."

"The fracture," he says, "can only be fixed through surgery at this point. But we already know you don't have time in your life for surgery."

Great. Fine. Ok.

He then goes on to tell you that you'll have to have surgery within five years if you want to save your foot from ulcers and such.

"I'll get on that doc, just as soon as I can get the insurance to pay for my daughter's surgery first!"

Yeah, it was one of those days!