For Feel Good Friday at The Girl Next Door Grows Up I thought I'd share a memory that makes me laugh. I didn't remotely enjoy this story myself until I knew the outcome so... I have to begin with the end: Our nurse came in the room and said, "Your son can go home now, his blood-work looks great, we don't have to administer the anti-venom, he's a healthy and very blessed boy."
Now for the beginning:
It was early Spring a few days after a tornado hit Nashville in 1998. I woke that morning and scraped my hair back in a messy ponytail and dressed in a pair of my husbands old levi's so that I could spread manure all over my yuppie, suburban, organic vegetable garden without ruining any of my clothes.
Note, my husband is over 6 foot tall, I am not. He also has size 34 inch waist, I do not. I ended up using a rope as a belt because the jeans wouldn't stay on and all my belts were too short. Yes, a rope. This will be important later.
I had envisioned my children joyfully helping with the manure spreading process. At the time I had a 7 yo, a 5 yo and a 3 yo. They helped long enough to get really dirty and then disappeared into the depths of the backyard. Probably to get away from the smell.
After a time I heard my 7 yo son crying, and looked up to see him coming towards me covered in leaves and holding his neck. After a brief struggle to prize his hand away from his neck I discovered two puncture wounds. Snake bite.
Mention snake bite, show a vampire wound, and your child pretty much gets fast-tracked in the E.R. Of course the term fast-track and hospital is an oxymoron. After the initial flurry of activity and I.V.s we were left to wait. My son was filthy. Leaf mould stuck to manure residue, stuck to normal messy 7 yo boy residue. He was scratching his head like a mad man. Watching him scratch his head made me scratch my messy, greasy ponytailed head.
When the nurses left I tried to get some of the worst of the manure off my shoes and jeans with a paper towel. I tied to neaten up my son and comb his hair. That's when I realized that not only were both of us covered in manure but my son had Head Lice. Arghhhhh!!
Right then the team of doctors walked in. Cool, educated, and led by a woman my age. She was sleekly coifed, wearing $400 shoes and expensive slacks under her white coat. She was surrounded by 3 other lesser doctor-beings. Their eyes all bulged slightly at the manure aroma. I think someone sent immediately for a translator; it being obvious that we would only be able to understand Hillbilly-ese.
By this time I knew my son was going to be fine so I had already mentally switched gears and was wondering how high our hospital bill was going to be and how soon I could go buy RID. Buuttt, to top it all off; as I was standing there willing my head to be itching for ordinary reasons, the lead doctor recognized me. We had gone to college together. She had been pre-med., I had been art history but we had both been in the honors program.
It was a proud moment-
Haven't you always wished to run into someone from your competitive past whilst covered in manure, wearing jeans held up by a rope, without make-up but with greasy hair, and accompanied by your child who is similarly stinky and has head lice?
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