Moms Play Injured!

So, quite a long time back, I wrote about my first sick day as a mom, but today is my first day on the Mom Injured Reserve list. So with today being my first day hurt, I learned something about the Mom Injured Reserve list, namely, it is exactly the same as the team roster. There is no such thing as an injured list when you're a mom. Figures.

Yesterday, I'm pretty sure I broke my little toe. I was cleaning the kitchen and jogged over to stop Sam from doing something totally disgusting with the open dishwasher. I don't even remember what it was, but she likes to lick the jet-dry dispenser, or unload and play with the cheese grater, so those are the likely culprits. As I dashed over to stop her, I managed to run into the corner of the baseboard at full speed. Three toes went one direction, and two went the other and WOW! That hurt so bad, I consider not yelling a horrible world--to be overheard by my mother on speakerphone and immediately incorporated into my baby's very limited vocabulary--to be one of my very proudest moments of self-control. Yes, I've stubbed my toe before, but this was Seriously Painful. I knew immediately it was more than just stubbed. Of course, it it was an arm or leg, yeah, I'd have no choice but to go to the doctor or hospital and get checked out, but it's my baby toe for crying out loud! Five years ago, when I was in college, I would have hobbled myself down to Campus Health, gotten a thorough workup and anything they recommended to ease the pain (drugs, crutches, a wheelchair...), hobbled back home sniffing tragically and thrown myself on the sofa in a bubble of self-pity for the remainder of the week. "I can't possibly walk to class tomorrow, I have a broken (albeit miniscule) bone, and hey, can you hand me those Pringles, I'm soo sorry to be an inconvience, it's just adding to my suffering to know I'm imposing on others. Thanks so much (Insert sad self-pitying smile here)."

That was five years ago, however, and now, I am a mom. So instead of limping directly to medical attention, I thought about what to do long and hard. So, I'm in huge pain right now. I really don't want to pay a copay for Urgent Care, frankly the thought is more painful than the toe. I don't even know what kind of doctor to make an appointment with for an injured baby toe, it just sounds stupid saying it out loud. Geez, I don't even have a general practitioner right now, I've been meaning to get one, but who wants to pay to meet a doctor when they aren't sick--will my OB/GYN fix my toe? Besides, say I do get X-Rays and the toe is broken? What in the world are they going to do with it? Cast it? Hardly. Splint it? Next to what, the stupid toe is like an inch long tops!? What if it is broken and there's an off chance they do want to do something major to protect it like a cane or crutches? There is just no way that can happen, I have a baby and all her many accessories to schlep around, so a boot or cane or crutch is going to have to be a no, anyway. It's not like I can ask my husband to take a sick day for the health of my baby toe--is he seriously supposed to help me out while I dictate from the sofa with a bandaid on a centimeter of my body? What's the point of paying for medical advice I'm just probably going to have to blow off anyhow? How could the smallest body part I could think of cause all this pain and thought? Sheesh.

So along this line of thinking, I've done nothing. Actually, I haven't "done nothing", rather, I continued doing whatever I had to. I had to sign papers for a refinance, so I cringed, shoved my swollen foot into the softest shoes I could find and hobbled myself down to the title company. I fed Sam her dinner last night, played with her, and with Daddy's help, we got her off to bed. I made myself and Daniel some dinner and cleaned it up. In short, I'm just going about my day.

I woke up this morning and sure, my baby toe is much fatter than it ought to be, it's a disturbing shade of purple, I can't bend it on its own power and if I try to bend it with my hand I hear a decidedly nasty crunching noise, but what am I going to do? I'm a mom, and we play injured because we know not playing isn't really an option. The day I'm so injured I can't play, it's going to have to be something much bigger than a baby toe, and that flat out scares me. So here I am, sucking it up, limping along, trying to find the plus sides to my Barney-hued phlanges. How about the fact that my inability to put on shoes means I don't have to leave the house, ergo no makeup and a ponytail all day long? Yes, that will do nicely. I also think managing to function on a broken toe is an excellent reason to make and eat brownies, don't you? Or even better, I'll go get those Pringles myself and eat the whole can.