Winning a terrible lottery

Actually, when I got in to the office on Tuesday morning, about 10:30am, that was almost the phrase I used to describe to my co-worker Mark what had been going on so far that day.  If you know me reasonably well, you probably know the phrase I actually used.

That is precisely how it felt, though.  I had an overwhelming sense of "wow, that could've been so much worse!" after a completely unexpected start to the day.

And it all started with James teaching me (again) that he knows more than I think he does and is better able to communicate than I think he is.  (And again, if you know me reasonably well, you know what I think of his ability to communicate and his ability to surprise me.)

"Good morning, James!  Did you sleep okay?" 

"Daddy?"

"Yes James?" 

"Foot broken."

Thinks I:   What?  Did I just hear that?  Of course not.  One, his foot isn't broken.  Two, if it was, how would he know to describe it that way?

"What, buddy?  Don't be silly, your foot isn't broken." 

"Foot broken."

I opted to just say "okay" and move on with the morning.  I didn't know what he had been thinking about or dreaming about, but we had more immediate concerns.  Breakfast.  A diaper change.  The usual.  I didn't even think it all that odd when he didn't want to walk downstairs for breakfast, instead wanting me to carry him.  Happens about half the time these days.

It wasn't until we got downstairs and I sat on the futon and asked him to choose something for breakfast that I started to get a sense for what he was really telling me.

We were following a frequent morning routine these days.  "What do you want for breakfast?"  "No breakfast," you've read the story before.  Only this time we went through all available options a few times with no winner so I had to make an executive decision.  "Okay, Daddy's going to go make you oatmeal, okay?  You go play for a few minutes while Daddy gets it ready, okay?"  That was when he started actually squealing "no" despite very obviously wanting to go play with his parking garage.  When he tried to go anyway, he couldn't put any weight on his right foot at all.

Like, at all.

Finally a light went on in the dim, muddled attic of my head and I thought "Holy s***, he's seriously in pain, is his foot really broken?"

Skipping ahead, having broken a few bones before and having been regularly keeping my first aid training up to date, I was convinced there wasn't a break, but since there was obviously something very wrong and a sprain or a muscle injury was pretty possible, I packed him in the car and took him over to CHEO.

I packed him in the car and took him to CHEO without his health-care card around 7:00am on a weekday.  I was walking into the emergency room with him in my arms when it finally occurred to me that my day was likely to turn from simply terrible into an unmitigated disaster.  We were going to be the problem patients, he didn't have any obviously serious injury requiring immediate attention, I didn't have his health-care card or any identification for him and the ER parking lot was nearly full when we arrived.

This is what I refer to as the S*** Lottery.  A situation that you're in, most of the things that will continue to make it bad are purely random (no, we won't talk about what random means here, don't worry) and there's no way out of it, not even the option to choose not to play.

But we won.

There was nobody in triage ahead of us.  When the triage nurse talked to him James even managed to tell her (extremely softly, as is his way with talking to strangers) what he thought was wrong, then we were able to easily demonstrate it to her.  In the first-level waiting room there were no kids ahead of us, so we just chilled there looking at the stars on the ceiling until one of the nurses called us up.  I explained what happened with James' card and she just called the Ministry of Health and got authorization for him.  In the second-level waiting room, the one past triage, there was only one kid waiting ahead of us and there were all kinds of interesting things on the wall.  The doctors weren't busy, there was an interesting train bench to sit on near Diagnostic Imaging and in under two hours we'd talked to the doctor three times, had five x-rays and were leaving confident that James' own triage assessment was incorrect (foot not broken) and mine was probably overly pessimistic (probably muscle-strain, not a sprain).  Honestly, that visit could not have gone any better, as far as I'm concerned, and I was steeling myself for the absolute worst.

So that's the first time this week that James reminded me that he is a really sharp little kid and he's got a lot more tools at his disposal than I think he does when it comes to communicating.

He's doing fine now, by the way.  Two days of sitting around the house, watching movies and reading books and having Advil whenever he seemed to need it and he was back to tearing up the place.

The second time it really struck me was yesterday when he and I were going out on our usual Saturday morning routine (coffee, comics, groceries, optionally a visit to PetSmart, optionally lunch).  We were driving north on Woodroffe, had just passed Fallowfield, and he called to me from the back seat.

"Daddy?" 

"Yes James?" 

"I see horsies!"

This, because I usually point out the horses when they're outside at the stable on the east side of Woodroffe along that stretch.

"I see horsies too, buddy!" 

"Daddy?" 

"Yes James?" 

"Here comes the train tracks!  Chucca-chucca-chucca..."

This, because the Via Rail line crosses Woodroffe right there.  I was nearly bowled over at how elaborate his sentences are becoming and how he's constructing a narrative for our trips out together.

Smaller, but just as real, was today when he and I were packing up from our visit to the Museum of Nature.  I got him back in the car and assumed that he would be ready for a snack on our way home.  I found a couple of rice krispie squares in my bag, so I asked him if he would like one.

For the first time ever, without prompting, he said:  "Yes please."

It was awesome.

I'd like to go on about eating freezies with him, or about Daniel starting to try to blow raspberries back at me when do it to him, or just the smiles he's starting to offer up much more regularly now, but this has already run long.  More later.