Crazy few days!

I survived having my molar pulled... barely.

Then of course Monday was Kyan's appt with the orthopedist. We drove about 5 hrs total for about 20 minutes with the ortho. Seriously. Basically, he's got what Forrest Gump had. Um.. except for the low IQ part. See, years ago they'd put braces on a child with legs like Kyan, but have since learned it doesn't help. Actually nothing does. It'll either go away or it won't. If it doesn't go away tho, he's going to be FAST!!

*bad Southern accent* Ruuuuun Kyyyyaaannnn.... rruuuuuunnnnn...

Um, yeah. According to the Dr, a lot of Olympic runners and faster athletes have this condition with their legs - for some reason it makes you faster than average. So okay... if he doesn't outgrow it he's going to walk funny, but he won't get beat up because he'll be able to outrun the bullies!! Yay Kyan!!

So we got that taken care of.

Tuesday morning Jaben comes downstairs and tells me he needs to see Dr Chris (our family Dr). I asked him what was wrong and he showed me his foot. Can I just say EW?? About a month or so ago, Jaben got a BIG splinter in his foot. Despite his fits (he can't stand having splinters pulled at ALL) I pulled it out. We cleaned it up, put a bandaid on it and I forgot all about it. Until Tuesday morning.

For a month, this kid has been walking around with leftover splinter in his foot. And he didn't tell anybody. Because he thought it was normal.

That's right - he thought it was normal. It hurt, it was red, it was getting puffy - but he thought it was normal. Grandma had managed to convince him it was not normal, but he wouldn't let her touch it - only Dr Chris could do it. So, when I got to work on Tuesday I called and got Jaben a 3:00 appt. At an office I'm not overly familiar with. But it was fine - I'd rather drive there and head off further infection than wait.

I took Jaben out of school around 2:15 and off we went. We found the office okay and were right on time for his appointment. Dr. Chris took a look at the foot in question, and decided that yes, it was a splinter stuck in there and that the skin had grown around it like scar tissue, so it was going to have to be cut out. He said he'd give Jaben a shot to numb it up, and then he'd feel nothing. It'd be easy.

Except that I forgot to mention that Jaben is afraid of needles.

We all got into position: me, sitting behind him on the table holding his upper body, the nurse holding his legs down, and Dr Chris all ready with the needle. Jaben took one look at the needle and freaked out. Big, fat tears, not breathing, all tight... not pretty. Kind of amusing if you're familiar with his tough-guy act, but not pleasant for the Dr. In spite of the fits, we continued on anyway. I put my hand over Jaben's eyes and told him deeeep slow breaths, baby, just think about breathing... while Dr. Chris put the needle in and... the splinter popped out.

The pressure of the needle under it must have been just what was needed to push the splinter up and out so no cutting was required, thank God! It was the biggest thing I've ever seen, about 1/4" (check a ruler, that's big for a splinter), especially considering it'd been living in his foot for a month!! So all he needed to have done at that point was the infection squeezed out and the nasty skin scraped off. EW.

But no stitches, thankfully. Imagine how stitches would've been, after how awful just the shot was going!! He's got to take antibiotics for the next 10 days, but he's fine.

My children have been informed that nobody is allowed to get sick, have big boo-boos, or emergencies until at least October. I figure I'll have recovered from this week by then. I mean, October is 5 months away. Even my kids can go 5 months without emergencies... right??