My eight-year-old son wrote a back-to-school essay earlier this year entitled, "The broken toe that wasn't." He's his momma's boy, isn't he? It was a story about an injury he had this summer involving a stubbed toe on a water slide. I ignored it for a couple of days, until the said toe became disgustingly infected. I broke down and took him to the doctor, who took an x-ray and determined it was also broken. I saw the x-ray myself. It was an obvious break, clear as day, even to my totally untrained eye. They rigged him up with the most adorable little walking boot you ever saw, and I tried not to feel guilty about waiting two days to take him to the doctor.
Then two days after that I got a call from the doctor saying that the radiologist thought it was just a shadow. She wasn't convinced, so she suggested we play it by ear and remove the boot when he was comfortable. Well he wasn't ready right then, but he was sooner than one would suspect for a break. So we'll apparently never know.
But I do know about his latest injury - an ankle sprain. It is a true and real sprain, I promise, despite the fact that at any given moment of the day he can be caught running, jumping, bouncing, springing, frolicking...you get the idea. These events are inevitably followed by an "Ouch! My ankle!" But it doesn't slow him down. He'll stop, feel it, and is off again. I keep hollering "Sit down!" "Put your foot up!" "Stop jumping up and down!" Seriously now, should I REALLY have to say that? One would think he's faking.
Except that a couple times a day he comes to me and says "Mom! Look, my ankle's getting huge!"
And yes, it is getting huger by the minute.
I think he's proud of it - the bigger the better. I'm sure he shows it off at school.
I'm fairly certain the authorities would frown on any attempts to tie him down, or drug him, but I'm not sure how else I'm going to let that poor ankle heal. If only the doctor would call and tell me the swelling is just a shadow...
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