Sunday, September 9, 2007

Lumps And Bumps

We had friends over for dinner tonight. It was all well and good, until their five year old launched off our family room chair and smacked head first into the wall. I was three feet away, and instead of playing "tough parent" and saying something smart like "hey there, we might want to put some ice on that lump on your forehead..." I screamed "OH NO! HOLY COW! THAT WAS HORRIBLE! ARE YOU OK?" So, we ate dinner while a sufficiently freaked out kid sat on her Dad's lap and we discussed the trials of growing up in a medical family.

Like the cobbler's kid- healthcare can be a bit of a comical situation when you have someone with professional expertise in the family. Take tonight's incident, for example. If it had been any other family- that kid would have gone to the emergency room. Seriously, the lump on the poor little girl's head was cartoonish, it was so big. After her pupils were checked, and she didn't throw up, we all went about our business. Her parents are going to rouse her a few times during the night, but all in all- it was chalked up to kids being kids.

It reminded me of a conversation I overheard between another medical couple. He said, "Do you think Dr. XXX (The Boss) is going to be mad because I took out too much of this guy's intestine?" And the wife says, "Screw Dr. XXX- do you think the patient is going to be mad?" And then they both laughed and went about their business.

So, it wouldn't surprise me if my kids grow up to only believe in holistic healing and wear crystals and listen to Yani. Payback can be a bitch.

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