If Only This Were April Fools

Elisheva tipped over a kitchen chair yesterday while standing on it. She cried for much longer than normal (yes, there is a normal in my house with toddlers and falling), and soon I realized that if I tried to set her down, she couldn't put any weight on her right foot - without crying horribly, that is.

I'm not really a doctor, doctor person. The last time I went to the ER was when I was a young child, and the last time I went to Urgent Care was when I was 17 (turned out I had appendicitis). So I took the "wait and see" approach. Soon except if her foot was bumped Elisheva stopped crying at all, and although she did not regain mobility I still thought it was probably just bruised, or strained.

Avram has class until 6:18, and then goes straight from campus to Church for Young Men's (this is only on Wednesdays, Thank God), so he didn't see Elisheva last night, but I had him stay home this morning until she woke up, so that he could give me a second opinion on her foot. I know that my natural tendency is to stay home unless the child is actively on fire, so I definitely didn't want to depend on my own judgment. Avram thought we should take her in, and after a long hunt we found our secondary insurance cards.

Seeing as we have two insurances, it would be a shame to not bring both identifications in, but we had never used the secondary insurance yet. To tell the truth, Elisheva had never been to a doctor in her entire born life up until today. She has had her immunizations at the county health, from nurses, but has never been to a well visit (mostly because we moved, and I never found a Primary Care Physician, and she was obviously well, so I just pronounced her so myself. Plus I'm cheap - never mind that we're currently paying COBRA rates for our primary insurance, the thought of paying a co-pay always convinces me to wait and see.)

We made our way to the Urgent Care, where it was so nice to have the whole matter out of my hands. For today, at least, I really enjoyed being at a hospital (the Urgent Care was attached to a hospital), and feeling 'taken care of' instead of having to make the big, grown up decisions myself. I half thought that they would just bandage her up and send her on her way, but they had x-rays taken, and when the doctor went to look at them, he didn't come back for a very long time, I became convinced that there probably was something wrong.

Sure enough, her metatarsal was broken (the bone that leads to the big toe), and not only is it fractured, but it's also bent. So they put a splint on her leg, and in a week we get to go to the bone doctors to see if she'll need a pin, or surgery or something, plus to see whether they'll keep her in a splint, or change over to a walking cast. Although they are fairly sure that the problem will self-correct since her bones are so young, and she won't need surgery. Which is a relief - can you imagine having surgery from

Despite being as clingy as a newborn, Elisheva has dealt with all of this very calmly. She's even sort of accepting that she has to crawl now, even though she doesn't like it. Not that she does crawl - she just has me carry her from place to place, and has me keep her on my lap at all times.

Life happens, and I'm glad that our first family injury was not a major one. Also, I hope that it's the last family injury for a long time. I'd philosophize more, but Elisheva is getting increasingly impatient with my current activity.