The Shoulder Bone’s Connected To The Toe Bone?
Anyone who knows my father knows that he likes to be the center of attention. He’s an entertainer; his job is being the center of attention. Sometimes this need to be the center of attention can manifest itself in negative ways.
My mother shattered her shoulder, the result of a scooter accident, and had to have joint replacement surgery last week. My mother is tough, almost to her detriment and reluctant to admit that she’s in pain. When she was going to get the surgery, my husband and I joked that she would probably tell the doctor that she didn’t need anesthesia, she could just bite down on a belt. Surprisingly, after surgery she actually took her pain medication and didn’t go to work for almost two weeks.
About six days after the surgery, we agreed to go to my parent’s place to help with some heavy furniture that needed moving. When we arrived, my father was walking with a severe limp and began to tell us how much his foot was hurting, that he didn’t know what was wrong with it. He then proceeded to help lift the heavy furniture without any apparent problem.
The next morning, my mother called to tell me that she had taken my father to the emergency room. He had woken her up in the middle of the night because he was in so much pain. The day before this he had told my mother that she shouldn’t try to go back to work yet because she was in no state to drive. My husband or I could’ve taken him to the hospital, but they didn’t call us until after the fact. So, she drove him to the emergency room, and using her good arm and her stomach, pushed him through the hospital in a wheelchair. The emergency room doctors told them that a stubbed toe was not an emergency and told him to see his primary care physician. So, she pushed him in his wheelchair to the other side of the hospital so that he could register to see his doctor.
His doctor sent him for x-rays. Finally, my father asked if someone else could push him to the x-ray room as his wife had a bad arm. His toe is not broken but he insists that on a scale of one to ten, his pain level is a ten. The doctor wrote him a prescription for pain killers and explained that they are a strong narcotic so he shouldn’t drive after taking them. My mother had just taken one of the same pain killers before driving him to the hospital. Then they gave him some crutches and sent him on his way.
Now my father has taken over the recliner that my mother has been using since her surgery because he needs to have his feet elevated. He keeps insisting that his foot is swollen up like a basketball. He puts on a show of hobbling around their condo. I wonder if his foot really does hurt. If you imagine pain long enough do you really feel that pain? Whatever is wrong with his toe, it will probably go away about a week after my mother goes back to work. It might linger a little longer. He could have a relapse on Thanksgiving Day and have to go back to the hospital.
