I realize that with four kids I should be grateful I’m not in the doctor’s off ice all the time.  Admittedly, Levi has tried hard to make sure I don’t miss out on that part of motherhood, but for the most part the apples I buy seem to do the trick for my other kids.  But this week they really tried to help me catch up on all those doctor visits they’ve been missing out on. 

On Monday Reagan jammed his finger catching a soccer ball.  When it was black and blue and rigid Tuesday morning, I took him to the doctor to see if it was broken.  They didn’t know, so they sent us for X-rays at the hospital.  Later that night while waiting to hear back from the hospital, Liberty ran out into the street in front of a boy on his bike, got totally run over, and fell and hit her head.  For the next hour she was totally disoriented.  She couldn’t remember what happened.  She kept crying and asking us over and over again what had happened.  We looked up concussion symptoms and she had none except for the disorientation, so we didn’t take her in at that point.  I’m not one to rush to the doctor as soon as my kids get hurt or show signs of sickness and now that we have a $40.00 copay, I am even less likely to do so.  She had a good bump on her head and some scratches and bruises, but that was all externally.  When we tried to feed her some bread she kept asking what it was there for.  At one point I asked her who Sleeping Beauty and My Little Pony were and she couldn’t tell me!!   After an hour of this we finally decided to distract her a bit with some TV and she seemed to calm down and went to bed mostly herself.  I will say that I checked on her about four times that night worried that maybe I should have taken her in and maybe she’d die of a blood clot in her brain.  But she slept fine and woke up her usual self-except that she still couldn’t remember what happened.  (She still doesn’t, actually.)

The next morning when the doctor called to tell us Reagan’s finger was not broken, I asked them about Libby and they politely told me that I should definitely bring her in to be looked at and that I should have brought her in right after it happened because it was a head injury.  Nothing like the doctor’s office to make you feel guilty.  So we took another forty dollar trip to the doctor (two days in a row) for him to look at her and tell me she had a mild concussion and that I should make sure to keep my three year old from doing anything where she might hit her head again.  (Don’t you love it when doctors say that? It’s all I can do not to laugh in their face.)

You think I’m done.  But I’m not.  That weekend while I was out of town, Reagan stubbed his toe and took a big chunk out of it.  Had I been there this time, we would have gone to the doctor for sure, forty dollars or not.  But he and Rock opted to band aid it.  I didn’t even hear about it until two days later when Reagan showed me the horror show that was his foot after two solid days sealed in a band aid.  So, Monday morning, we went BACK into the doctor’s office for the third time in less than a week.  This was also the third time I was bringing a child in AFTER the fact and I’m sure they are ready to call CPS on me.  Sure enough he did need stitches but it was too late by then, and his foot was slightly infected.  Doctor’s orders:  antibiotics and no swimming lessons for three days (the first three days of his class, no less). 

Not to be out done by his siblings and because I’m sure deep down he was really missing the doctor’s office, Levi fell down on his scooter and got three good bloody scrapes on his knee.  We put some band aids on and not two hours later he was back in with another bloody scrape on the same knee right next to the band aids for the first three wounds. 

Count em.  1,2, 3, 4! 

I think there was definitely something wrong with our apples this week.  They sure didn’t do their job.