Motherhood Can Be Hazardous to Your Health (Part 2)

Unless you never see your children, it’s virtually impossible to go through their childhoods without suffering a child inflicted accidental injury.  Usually, it’s nothing serious requiring no more than a Band-Aid or icepack. It just goes with the territory. I could give quite a few examples from my own experience, but here is a memorable one. 

          This particular event is especially noteworthy, because not only do we remember it as a family, but it has entered us in the annals of Ear, Nose & Throat doctor’s lore everywhere.

          Here’s what happened . . .

          When Chase was 7-years-old, he broke his nose in basketball practice. More specifically, another child decided that one way to effectively play under the basket is to snap your head back as fast as you can into the face of the kid guarding you.  Because Chase is blessed to have an attorney for a mom (as well as to have naturally inherited my ability to at least consider the liability of others when injured), he immediately sought my advice as to the viability of a lawsuit for battery.

          While he had an excellent case, it didn’t take much research to figure that there wasn’t much to gain by bringing an action against another child, so we moved on.

          The first order of business was getting his broken nose repaired. Our excellent EN&T doctor scheduled and performed the surgery a week later.  After Chase came out of anesthesia and was ready to go home, I offered to help him dress.

          He wasn’t having much of that and argued a bit with me.  I explained that he might still be groggy so I needed to help him.  He still didn’t like that, but I insisted.

          I won’t describe my description of what happened lest I find myself in a lawsuit for defamation.  While I feel I could prevail (because I believe my description is accurate), I’ll just describe it this way.

          I knelt down and set Chase’s shorts out where he could put them on.  As he lifted his leg up, his knee made forceful contact with my nose.  To this day, I can still hear the loud crunching sound it made as I hit the ground holding my own nose.

          It was broken.

          A week later (to the day), I was in the same surgery center for the surgery performed on Chase the week earlier.

          Before the procedure, the anesthesiologist came in to talk to me.  I couldn’t tell when she walked in if she was more confused or curious.

          “Mrs. Samuels,” she began, “I really have to be honest.  You’re not our prototypical broken nose patient.  We usually only see this with drunk UT students after a night on Sixth Street.  Where did this happen?”

          “Over there in Room 3,” I replied.

          Chase and I are famous now, at least in the Ear, Nose & Throat community. 

          Thankfully, we haven’t branched out to any other practice groups yet, and hopefully we never will.