I very distinctly remember picking nursing as a major because it was "family friendly." Nurses get to get their hands dirty and be involved in medicine without putting in the ghastly hours that doctors work. Plus, I figured that nursing skills could be very useful in everyday life. I just didn't realize that mommy would get to play nurse so soon...
On Saturday, we realized that something was wrong with our oldest child. The kid never complains of pain. I just remember him complaining of a stomach ache once before, and that was after we discovered he had a serious stomach bug. (The same bug that had Mommy and Daddy flat on our backs for 2 days!) Anyway, on Saturday he started complaining of pain in his left shoulder. And he repeatedly pointed to the same spot.
As a nurse, I guessed it was his collar bone. However, since he was using his arm just fine and still demonstrated full range of motion on his left arm, I figured he would be fine until the doctor's office opened on Monday. A collar bone fracture is not typically a medical emergency. (Did you know that a collar bone can even heal itself?) But later, after dinner when we started playing a family game of t-ball in the backyard, my guy started showing signs of serious pain. When he started crying, we packed up the family and headed to Cook's urgent care.
Sure enough, mommy was right. He has a broken collar bone. It was our very first broken bone and our first ER visit for one of our children. Thankfully, Cook's was wonderful and made the experience rather pleasant for our little guy. Now we get to live with a brace for 6-8 weeks and get to wait until we're cleared by orthopedics. I'm just so glad it's a collar bone and not a body part that requires a cast. Mommy, the nurse, has enough experience with casts and crutches to know that the collar bone was probably the best thing to break!
Anyway, that night we heard crying in the middle of the night. Who would have thought that it was child #2 throwing up his dinner?! What parents get lucky enough to score a broken bone and a stomach bug on the same weekend? Obviously us.
I have to confess that while we were at Cook's I had flashbacks to being a pediatric nurse and even kind of missed it. But child #2 provided a nice reminder for me why I'm done taking care of other people's sick kids. Because as a mommy, you're always on duty and have plenty of messes and ailments to deal with at home. And who wants to be up in the middle of the night dealing with another person's kid?
I'm sure we'll have more ER visits, wounds, and stomach bugs before our guys make it to college. But in our house, at least we have a full-time nurse.
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