Sunday, July 14, 2013

Not Retiring Yet

Why?
 
Because I am still here. Still tapering off prednisone.  (takes a freakishly long time after you've been on it a few years.)
 
Still J's mom. Still being whoed by the whole thing.

This is what has happened since I said I was done:


J's baseball pants did retire - you can see why- I scrubbed them up one last time for his final game.
 
Here's how he handled the end of the season.....

 
Yup. Strewn across the basement couch. It looks like he shrunk inside them doesn't it?

Well, he hung up his big barrel baseball bat in the spring, (he was willing to play year round baseball)

and

summer got into full swing- wind and all.

Summer has meant a myriad of things this year. Many similar to past summers.

Mowing lawns.

Saving money for something he really wants.

Me helping him do that while curbing his desire to spend all his money. Which is  having to lay down the savings law of saving. (Tithe. and then a portion into savings.)

Very painful. But I help the kid and feel that is my contribution to his savings and purchases.

Some random ones...

New Tent. New desire to camp. Kid camp. Back yard used as training ground. Put up tent at least ten times.
Put sealant on the seams of tent until his fingers stuck together. Then I finished the rest.

Read a book about camping. Only made his desire to go even more profound.

Went camping, in a forest with no bears he was informed, just recently.

 J: "But the bathrooms had signs on them that read 'Bear Country' 

Me: Must have been for decoration.

We all know what camping out in your own tent in a forest with bears that pull you from your tent and maul you can be like. (The Uintas- and pretty much anywhere bears are it is possible.)

His induction into Webelos has meant Turbo Scouting.

Which means they learn even more about camping, widdling, wild life and what have you.



(working with molding clay was one optional scout requirement. He has quite the knack.)

While many are sewing dresses for wedding receptions we hit the ER the other day to have a Dr. sew up J's knee.



His experience immediately roused my writing abilities from the dead.

He's been biking a lot and as you know he likes to bike. He never sustainted any hospital trip injuries whilst dropping in and out of the bowl at Tauphuas Park.

He hasn't fallen going down stairs or up stairs on his mountain bike.

But tooling around on the street with his friend just 'doing nothin' prompted this call from best friend's mom:

 BF Mom: "Amanda? Jaden is here (nothing unusual to alert me of the dire situation))
and he's had a fall.

hmmmm. .... my mother instinct is going back over the possiblities.

BF Mom: It looks like he's gonna need stitches.

Me: REally?

The doorbell rang. Their car was outside. Uh-oh. Jaden was on the other side where his BF's Dad was kneeling with him, holding a white wash rag over the wound.

They pulled it back at my request.

WHOA. A crater in his leg. The upper skin was squished up and out of the way like drapes being pulled back to reveal the anatomy of his knee. It wasn't pretty.
I had my bile moment then pulled it together.

Out to the hospital we went; Me trying to prepare him for what was to come,
and telling myself I could get through the moments of him bawling while they cleaned it out and then tortured him with telephone cable and a quilting needle to put him back together.

Amazingly the ER was empty.

Triage nurse hooked him up the to the BP cuff in no time.

J: It might have a high reading because I am nervous.

P.A. and nurse chuckle.

They ask the usual questions.

Them: Are his booster shots current?

Me: Yes. Those measle looking dots are mere mosquito bites....

And then some unusual questions.

Them: Are you a home schooled kid?

J: Uh, I'm a school, schooled kid.

He was wheeled by yours truly back to cubby twenty three.

The Dr. came in.

Dr.: Who was she?

J: huh?

Dr. The girl chasing you?

J: uh...

Dr.: So what happened?

J: It's a classic tale...

and his voice faded as he shook a bit on the gurney waiting his fate.

Dr. looked at it and told the nurse to pour some numbing agent on it.

That's right, POUR.

Me- what? no needles? how the heck...

So the nurse came in and poured some cold lidocaine liquid on his knee that his little crater absorbed.
J: I can't feel a thing!



Ten minutes later the nurse comes back and pours more of the cold liquid on his knee.
Jaden is perplexed and excited despite shaking a bit. REason: epinepherine is also in that concotion.

So the Dr. comes back and scrubs the crater. I am amazed I am not disgusted by this but the fact my son isn't wailing, really helps. He talks about how clips on his mountain bike made him fall right at a stop sigh once. So they connect about mountain biking. (this is why J. fell. he was riding his bike with the clips newly put on, one glance down to try to get out of the pedals and... yeah.

Jaden sits up and starts quizzing the Dr. about his credentials.
Like where he practiced, what things he dissected in HS and his Med schooling.

The Dr. answered that he had worked on pig legs to give him practice and then cadavers. After that real people back east while he interned. Which meant a really good Dr. leaned over his shoulder and watched.

Jaden was satisfied with his experience and professionalism.

J: What kind of knots are those?
he asked as the doctor pulled back the squished up skin flat twizzers and pulled it over the crater.

Dr. :Surgeon knots.

The Dr.  stopped for a bit and showed us how he made square knots with the use of blunted scissors.
Then he took out a knot and decided that it needed a mattres knot instead.

This made the bottom part of the knee skin have the potential to lay flatter. It was longer across horizontally. All very interesting. Again, made possible because I wasn't holding his arms and body down while they numbed the area with shots right in the crater. Like in the old days.

The nurse was amazed at his composure and desire to watch. She asked if he could help her the rest of the day. What a nice nurse.

They are understaffed I told him...

Then the Dr. dropped the bomb.

"You can't bend your knee to a 90 degree angle. So no bike riding. No swimming in creeks. (that was in the plans for the afternoon.) No swimming in even chlorinated water.
Wash the wound daily with soap and water. No hydrogen peroxide.  So it is basically X-box and movies for the next ten days."

????????????????????????????????????????????

Our jaws dropped.

J: ha, hah!!!!!!!!!!! payback!
he said to me mockingly then quickly looked at his Dr. and asked:

J: No camping? I was going to camp out back tonight! And NO BIKING?

Dr. You can walk.

oh, brill.

Jaden was subdued as they wrapped his leg in bandage to remind him to not bend it, but the pain in recent days and hours has helped him to remember to lay flat as a cadaver.

And the keeping his leg up lasted all of two hours as I read to him from Patrick McManus; camping extroidinaire.

he got his camping fix, so no worries. He also only made it til about 3 a.m. before the knee was getting to him.

So he has a ten day excuse to get out of mowing it looks like.

 Good thing he has a built in sub.

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