As the More as More Mom®, I have been all about….more trips to the orthopedist. Well, who wants to be all about that? We have seen a variety of nice doctors at OAD Orthopaedics, in Warrenville, for a broken wrist, sprained wrist, broken thumb, broken fingers, sprained fingers, broken ankle, heel pain, knee pain, torn meniscus and yesterday we celebrated the three year anniversary of the successful replant of Chuck’s once completely severed thumb. How exactly did that happen you may ask? Funny story, we were getting ready for a party, Chuck was on a rickety step stool in the garage, which suddenly gave way. As he tried to steady himself against the soffit, his thumb got wedged in the “V” of the angle bracket that holds up the garage door opener, and as he fell to the ground, with his thumb wedged in the angle bracket, it literally ripped right off of his hand. His screams sent me running to the garage and when I opened the door he said, “I cut off my thumb.” To which I replied, “Should I call 911?” He responded, “No. Get me to the Emergency Room!” Then I said, “But first I have to find your thumb!” He directed me to look upward and there it was, hanging from the ceiling. Eeew. So, I filled up one of my good Tupperware containers with ice, snagged a sturdy chair, plucked his thumb from the angle bracket and submerged it in the ice. We raced off to the Emergency Room and after 7 hours of micro hand surgery, the doctors from OAD put it right back on; piece of cake. He’s practically as good as new (though I opted not to bring home my good Tupperware). How about that?
In the spring, Amanda was experiencing some back pain. Like all good mothers, I told her she was fine. It’s embarrassing to run to the doctor every five minutes, and besides, our insurance company would never stand for it. We talked with her gymnastics coach, deciding that the first course of action was to ease up on her more strenuous skills and work on strengthening her core. As summer was ending, her back pain had not diminished and I was finally shamed into taking her to the doctor. Naturally, he promptly ordered an X-ray and subsequently….. a bone scan. Apparently after years of watching General Hospital, ER and in my formative years, Marcus Welby, MD, my TV medical degree wasn’t quite as useful as I might have thought.
I’ll be darned! It turned out to be a small stress fracture in her last vertebrae. For the next six weeks she will be wearing a corset (doesn’t that just scream cool first impression for a freshman in High School?) and, as a master of the obvious, no gymnastics.
I would consider one of Amanda’s greatest skills to be that of problem solver. Once, when she was about seven, she was playing in a large cardboard box, as kids do. The box was dark, so she cut a hole in the top (with her blunt tipped scissors), inserted a flash light, taped it in place and, hence, invented recessed lighting. Perhaps that was the beginning of her affinity for Duck Tape and the precursor to her career on HGTV!
Amanda was fitted for her corset and has been a super good sport about wearing it (when she was a little girl, she never met a band-aid she didn’t like). The only problem has been that the metal stays keep sliding out and poking her in the back, making it rather uncomfortable. The Queen of Duck Tape to the rescue…..
Looking on the bright side, if she’s not spending 20 hours each week at the gym, she has more time to spend on her school work. And what teenage girl doesn’t want to have……more time for school work?
More is More Mom 