Little did I know, my daughter and I would have so much in common. Being a little sister, you have to be tough. Growing up with older brothers and a fearless attitude, I had a tendency to achieve many memorable injuries. At the ripe age of three is when all of the memories come to play for me. A broken arm from getting mashed (by my brother) while riding in the back of a pickup truck, getting into mischief when no one was looking and getting burnt in the shower, deciding to play doctor and get into the cough medicine…my brother was administering the medicine. Oh, lets see…playing jockey on a horse and getting the wind knocked out of me from falling backwards after getting clotheslined by a tree limb (yep, it involved a brother), a baseball being fast pitched to my nose (my brother was a pitcher, he thought he killed me), three fingers slammed in the hinge of a cab tractor door (while my brothers did their best to push them into a glass of ice to “ease the pain”)…see where I’m going with this?
With my youngest, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. We come from a long line of stubborn and tough women. I think she’s going to put us all to shame. I tell her not to try something that will likely hurt her, she’s going to do it any way come hell or high water. In fact, her grandpa calls her Miss Obstinate and Squeaky…she knows how to hit high notes and gets a kick out of it.
It was just this week that I had my first real injury with her. Yeah, they all get scrapes and scratches, but this one was different. I knew that she and her brothers were having races in the driveway. She was determined to join the racing. I was once again running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get supper on the table along with the other huge to do list. I step inside for a second, next thing I know, I hear “the scream”. Any mom knows what I’m talking about, not the irritated scream, or the scream that she just lost the race, it was…THE SCREAM. I dropped everything, ran outside, and sure enough she was on the ground (paved driveway), the guilty kid was sitting on the step crying because he knew he was in trouble, while his brother was ratting him out and giving me every detail. Apparently a six-year-old brother thinks it’s okay to push his almost 4-year-old sister when she’s beating him in a race.
There were the typical scraped knees and pretty good road rash on her face, but I knew something else just wasn’t quite right. She’s tough and brushes these things off quickly, but she just wasn’t shaking it. I calmly assessed her movement while she pointed to her wrist and said it hurt. Hmm, she can move her hand, lightly grip my hand, she’s finally starting to calm down. I decided to ride it out. It was later when she wouldn’t even hold a fork to eat or pull her pants up or down to go the bathroom, my internal mom bell was on red alert. I had a flashback because when I broke my arm at the age of three in that pickup truck, I went three days before I had the bone re-set. Despite everyone telling my mom I was fine, she knew something wasn’t right. I just didn’t indicate that I was hurt. Oh boy! Sky’s just like me!
Now, an ER is the last place I wanted to be during a pandemic, but of course these things always happen on a Friday night after urgent care closes or the dead of the weekend. We grabbed our masks and extra hand sanitizer and hit the road. Sky had everyone fooled. Two nurses said they thought she was probably okay since she was moving her arm and would see if the doctor thought she needed an x-ray. Then my ruminating began…oh man, did I bring her here for nothing? This is going to be a fun bill. BUT, in my gut, I knew she wasn’t okay.
A lovely soft spoken and gentle doctor came in to see Sky. I was amazed by her grace and thorough assessment. Through her layers of masks and face shield (yes, I said layers), she pinpointed a spot on Sky’s arm and said, “I’m pretty sure it’s broken right here.” We got the x-ray and she had exactly pinpointed the fracture. She was amazing. The doctor said something to me that will stick with me for a long time. She said, “a mom knows her kids, and a mom’s gut is always right.” I was even more amazed by my little girl. She never cried, was calm, breathing through the pain, and had everyone wrapped around her finger. I’m so thankful I listened to my mom gut feeling and did what had to be done. Next step, the orthopedist to get a bright pink cast! Both Sky and I experienced our WOMENT of hanging tough together.
