It was just a typical Saturday morning; Kevin and I got up, ate breakfast and then went and worked out. After we were finished, we went to our normal coffee spot and we were sitting outside on a balmy fall day enjoying a coffee, a scone and conversation. My cell phone rang and it was Keely calling from college.
Keely: “Mom, uggghhh, I feel terrible”
Me: “How was your dance last night?” (she had a sorority semi-formal the night before)
Keely: “I feel horrible, I’m hungover … and I think I broke my toe” (here we go!)
Me: “What? How did you do that?” (WHY? WHY do I ask these things?)
Keely: “I don’t know.”
Me: “You don’t know how you broke your toe? You must have been pretty anesthetized last night then. How bad is it?” (Anesthetized = shorthand for DRUNKER THAN HELL, but she’s 21 so …)
Keely: “Ugghh…it’s killing me, I can’t walk and it’s black and swollen. Plus I’m nauseous, and my head hurts and … hold on a minute Mom, Andie just got here. I’ll call you back”
I get off the phone and tell Kevin, “this is ridiculous.” Why is this ridiculous? First of all, Keely has broken her arm 8 times not counting the times she hurt it but it wasn’t broken. She’s also had 4 stress fractures, a few sprains and of course, the kicker is that last year she had “the biggest benign bone tumor in Duke University Medical Center history.” So yeah, that’s crazy! The second reason this is ridiculous is because just 5 weeks before I got a similar phone call from Andie saying:
Andie: “MOM!”
Me: “Andie, what are you doing calling me so early on a Saturday? Don’t you have tailgate?”
Andie: “Mom, I’m in so much pain…I’m dying”
Me: “Why, what happened?”
Andie: “I fell off the end of a truck at tailgate and I think I broke my arm.”
Me: “You FELL off a truck?”
Andie: “Yeah, at tailgate…I fell off the back of a truck!”
Me: “How bad is it?”
Andie: “It really hurts and it’s really swollen. I had to leave because the bass in the music was hurting my arm and I don’t know what to do.”
Me: (Huge sigh. This can’t be good if the BEAT is hurting her arm) “Can you take a picture with your phone and send it to me?”
Andie: “Yeah…hold on”
So, she takes the picture shown here:
And I look at it and I’m like “holy shit, that’s a mess” and I tell her to go to the emergency room. She tells me that there’s no way she’s going to the ER because it takes so long so I tell her to put it in a brace and drive home and I’ll call one of my MANY orthopedic friends on stand by to check her out. “I don’t have a brace” she says. “Really,” I reply, “then call Keely and see if she has a brace in her apartment.” (Of course she has a brace in her apartment. The kid’s had 8 broken arms! She collects them like people collect…what do people collect?) So, she comes home, we see somebody and YES, of course it’s broken. OF COURSE IT’S BROKEN!!! They put her in a brace (a different type of course so I have to purchase yet ANOTHER brace) with a thumb guard and tell her to get it re-checked in 3 weeks. (She doesn’t get it re-checked because well, she’s MUCH TO BUSY to bother with details like that. Let the arm rot and fall off and then call Mom and say “Mom my arm just fell off”). This was just FIVE weeks ago. She just took off her brace on Friday and this is now Saturday morning. Seriously? SERIOUSLY?
So yeah, I’m not particularly fazed but I’m in the “you must be fucking kidding me” part of the day. So Keely calls back.
Keely: “Mom, Andie’s here…my toe is killing me, my head is hurting and I’m nauseous.”
Me: “Put Andie on the phone.” (she does). “Andie, what does her toe look like?” (Andie’s pre-med, she needs to get used to this)
Andie: “It’s pretty swollen…and it’s black”
Me: “Ok. Take a picture with your cell phone and send it to me” (I’m still in the coffee place having my peaceful time with Kevin ruined once again by my kids. I mean really, I send them away to college and I still get this shit!)
Ok, I look at the picture here:
Yep, that looks pretty damn bad to me. You doubt me? I’m like an amateur doctor at this point in my life. Now I know that with a toe if it’s just broken, nothing much can be done but if the joints messed up, usually surgery is required so I tell them to stay put and call my orthopedic neighbor who is pretty goddamned sick of me calling his cell phone all the time. I explain the situation and after a huge sigh, he says to send him the picture. I forward the picture to him and he says to have her come home and get an X-Ray because it looks bad around the knuckle of the toe. (Wow! This is shocking! It looks bad? My kids? Jesus fucking Christ!)
I relay the information to the girls and Andie drives Keely home (we live an hour from their school) and I meet them at the orthopedic urgent care. The doctor tells me to have Andie’s arm X-Rayed as well to make sure it’s all the way healed since she removed the brace because, well because the brace was dirty and she was tired of wearing it. I mean, that’s as sound a medical reason as any, right?
So we’re at the Urgent Care place and they ask Keely how she hurt her toe. “Ummm…I don’t know” she replies. “Did you kick something, slam into something” the Physicians’ Assistant asks. At this point, I’m cracking up as Keely tries to hem and haw her way out of this. Finally, the PA says “Was alcohol involved?” Hahahaha…I’m cracking up and Keely replies sheepishly “Yes”.
Long story short, of course the toe is broken but fortunately, no surgery is needed so they put it in a boot. She needs to leave it on for 6 weeks! I have no idea how she’s going to get around campus but fortunately, after being on crutches for 6 months last year, this is nothing, and it’s kind of funny in a pretty sick way.
I take a picture of her foot in the boot (below)
and send out a Tweet that includes the picture and the following text: 8 broken arms, 4 stress fractures, 1 gigantic bone tumor and now this …
What do I get back? “Is this you over your lifetime, or your family?”
I Tweet back “One 21 year old child, all by herself”
Here’s the greatest Tweet ever from @hamletsmistress: “Is she a Rodeo Clown?” Here’s her link: Hamlets Mistress
HAHAHA. “Is she a Rodeo Clown?” We’re all cracking up in my house. I answer no, she’s not, but the Tweeter tells me that “You should tell people she’s a Rodeo Clown.” I can’t disagree with her. After all, it’s the only plausible explanation, isn’t it?
Any way, I just wanted to regale you with a typical day in the MacDonald household. They always start out with SO much promise but when one of your kids is a Rodeo Clown, things can go downhill rapidly.
