Busy Week

Sometimes I forget I have a couple of other kids who also need my time and attention on occasion. This week was a nice reminder.

I got a call yesterday morning from the nurse at Mary's school telling me that Mary was hit in the face with a basketball at close range. She tells me Mary's nose is very swollen and deviated to the left. I cancel my appointments for the day, call my sister - who says she'll go pick up Mary because she is closer to school - and I race out of the office to meet them at my sister's house. Based on the school nurse's description, I walk in expecting to find Mary an absolute mess and with her nose on the side of her face. Uh, not even close. In fact, I can't even see any swelling (although Mary insists it's swollen) and I'm not seeing any deviation. So as not to be nominated for the "Heartless Mother of the Year" award, I decide I'll at least take her to Urgent Care. We get there and I'm told that they don't do x-rays of the face. What, their machines don't work on faces? I look at Mary and ponder the question .... go to the ER or go to lunch? We chose lunch! Mary and I had a nice lunch together, I dropped her off at home and then headed back to office. Mark thinks Mary's nose has "shifted". I'm still not seeing it. But, I went ahead and made her an appointment with the ENT next week. Jack already has an appointment, so she'll be coming along. The picture of Mary is taken at lunch yesterday (with my phone - no, I don't carry a camera with me everywhere I go :-) I think her nose looks fine, what about you?

Today I took Hilary to the audiologist because she hasn't had her cochlear implant checked in years. Poor Hilary, her needs completely took a back seat after Jack was born. When we lived in St. Louis it wasn't as big a problem because her school handled all her hearing issues. Since we moved home, she's been totally neglected. We've noticed that her speech has really become unintelligible, so it was time to get her in for an evaluation. The audiologist changed some of her settings (the technical term is "mapping" her implant) and tested her receptive language by covering her (the audiologist's) mouth and saying sentences that Hilary was asked to repeat. Hilary started crying because she was upset that she couldn't understand some of the sentences. Sometimes I think Hilary forgets she is deaf because she manages so well with her implant. Nothing like watching your overly emotional teenager have a meltdown in the audiologist's office. After we left the office, Hilary told me she hoped being emotional wasn't hereditary because she didn't want a kid who acted like that. All I could do was laugh and let her know that ALL teenage girls are emotional!

I emailed the St. Louis ortho with a few questions now that we are at the six month mark. I will only say that his response was true to form and he remains the most unlikeable physician I have ever dealt with since Jack was born. I am just glad to be done with him.

So that's my week in a nutshell. Not too exciting, but far from boring!