Oh for the Love of God

Posted: July 19th, 2007 | Author: kristen from motherload | Filed under: Miss Kate | No Comments »

On Friday the 13th I woke up and opened both eyes. This is an involuntary, un-noticed act to most humans, yet it was a great stride for me since I’d been suffering in a (thankfully) temporary state of Cyclops-ism for five weeks.

Opened as it was, it still didn’t look right. And by “look” I mean both appear normal, and see very well. At times it doesn’t want to work and play well with the left eye, and strikes out on its own. And it just doesn’t like looking to the left or up or down. So I just manage to tilt my head at odd directions to focus in on things.

Forget being in the car though. Everything passes by in a big swirling blur, so I’ve still got to keep the right eye on Clamp Down. And that lid is still kinda droopy, though seems to be opening more widely as the days go by.

Thank you God, thank you God.

But while I have you on the line, Sir, can I ask how it is that you have this giveth and taketh away thing going for us?

Just when it seemed like we were trending toward health here Chez McClusky, Kate took a digger off the swing at the park today and appears to have BROKEN HER LEG AGAIN. Yes, the same one that just got out of a cast less than two weeks ago. Could anything be more rotten and miserable?

To magnify my Bad Mother Guilt for even letting this happen, it took one solid hour of her bawling maniacally for me to grock that her leg was hurt. The fall wasn’t that bad at all and I assumed she was just scared by how suddenly it happened, and/or was just hungry and tired, it being noon.

So I carted her home where she continued to whine, whimper, and weep. Then I finally noticed she couldn’t put any weight on her left leg–the recently fractured one. And it was like someone hit Replay on the huge bummer that was the first time this happened.

Fast forward through three-and-a-half hours at the Children’s Hospital ER–which I need to tell my single gal friends (what few remain) seems like a decent place to meet cute compassionate young medical professionals. We triaged, we waited, we moved to an examining room, we waited, Kate was examined, we were sent up to x-ray, we waited, we moved to another inner-sanctum waiting room closer to the x-ray room, we waited, she got the x-ray, we went back out to inner-sanctum waiting area, they sent us back down to the examining room, we waited, we ate pretzels, I realized no one knew we were waiting, I told the nurses, then more waiting, examining once again, putting on of a splint, and waiting for nurse rotation, then (huzzah!) discharge. We stumbled out onto the sunny sidewalk squinting like we’d been hiding in a hovel with Saddam Hussein for weeks. (Something which well could have been more fun.)

Towards the end of the whole ER process Cute Doctor “Tom” explained that the x-rays show what the radiologist referred to as a “progressive fracture” (i.e. a break that broke more). Though, it could just be that they were seeing the first break and how it healed. Ah, I love a definitive diagnosis.

So today she has a splint, and tomorrow while I’m at the neuro-opthomologist Kate sees the orthopedist, and likely gets a cast. Again. For God knows how long this time. (And what color do we get this time? Pink again? No. Been there. Maybe red? But will it clash to much with a lot of her clothes? It’s all just too overwhelming.)

I’m exhausted.

Farewell summer, I say with dramatic flourish. Farewell any chance we’ll have to swim this year. Farewell my reporting to people, “Her cast? Oh she has it off and you’d never even know anything had happened to her leg!”

Poor Kate, not even two and she knows how to work the hospital racket. Today as I’m filling out some registration paperwork she looked at the administrator and asked in her most innocent and beguiling manner, “Stickers?” She totally had that woman dialed in as a Sticker Giver Outer. At least she managed to resist saying “Fork ‘em over, lady.”

Another fun fact to intensify feelings of parental inadequacy: At one point today I lamented to the doctor that I wish Kate didn’t have to have so many x-rays–today’s being the forth she’s had in the past two months. By way of comfort, he assured me that the amount of radiation she gets from these x-rays is far less than what you get, say, flying cross-country.

Oh great. We’ve only flown cross-country with Kate eight or so times… I feel much better knowing she’s gotten more exposure to harm voluntarily from us, versus by accident. We’re at least controlling the situation, right?

Tune in for more on Kate’s Cast, Part 2.

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