That time my son broke his foot and I didn’t believe him

Published 1:30 am Sunday, December 18, 2016

This is why I’m the worst mother in the world: When my son broke his foot I almost didn’t take him to the doctor.

It was a Thursday afternoon and the phone rang. “Mom,” my sixth-grader said in a normal-sounding voice, “I hurt my foot at recess.”

“What happened?”

“I flipped off the 8-foot climbing wall — and landed it!”

“That sounds dangerous. You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck.”

“I wasn’t going to break my neck,” he huffed, “but my foot hurts.”

“Do you need me to pick you up?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

I looked at the clock. I had a 40-minute window where I could race to his school and still be home in time to collect his sister. “If I come pick you up, you can’t go to gymnastics,” I told him.

There was silence for a moment. “I don’t think I could do gymnastics today anyway.”

That got my attention because my son lives for gymnastics. Twenty minutes later, I was picking him up from the school’s health room. I took a close look at both of his feet. No swelling. No color change. No broken skin. “How does your foot feel?” I asked him.

“It hurts,” he answered. Then he put on a show of dramatically hopping on his good foot out to the car.

By the time my daughter was home from school, I was still uncertain about what to do. Both kids were sacked out on the couch watching cartoons. It seemed cruel to disturb them. Plus, would I be able to get a same-day appointment with our pediatrician at 3:45 p.m. in the middle of cold and flu season?

The Urgent Care clinic was an option, but that was pricy. Then I remembered that it was December and we had already hit our health insurance deductible.

“Grab your iPads,” I told the kids, “we’re going to the doctor.”

The Urgent Care team immediately whisked us away to a room. They wrapped my son’s foot in ice and sent him off for X-rays. All the while, he continued to be his normal self. There was a good deal of sibling bickering while we waited for the doctor to see us, but that was it.

“This is boring,” complained my daughter.

“When can we go home?” my son wanted to know.

The doctor came in a few minutes later with big news. My son’s foot was broken.

What the what? He wasn’t even crying! The only reason I bothered to take him in to Urgent Care was because we had hit our deductible.

“No gymnastics for a month,” said the doctor, while the medical assistant brought out a walking boot. “Follow up with the pediatric orthopedic specialist in a week.”

See? I told you I’m the worst mother in the world. My son broke his foot and I didn’t believe him. If it had been January, he might still be in pain.

Jennifer Bardsley is an Edmonds mom of two. Find her on Instagram @the_ya_gal; Twitter @jennbardsley or at teachingmybabytoread.com.