Woman take him to the ER!

[trunks2k]

Does your brother have any lasting affects because of not getting it checked out?

Nah.

For all the ignoring my mom did with on certain ailments, she was pretty good at giving accurate diagnosis of stuff, and treating it well. Just god forbid we ever had to get picked up from school in the middle of the day due to sickness/injury. She used to work nights, so she was not someone to be messed with if she got woken up suddenly. Best was when I hurt my finger in gym class. At first I thought I just jammed it really badly. But when I let go of it I couldn't move it above the top knuckle, and it would just kinda fall foreward, it made a perfect (yet painful) L.

Went to the nurse, and the nurse thinks I jammed it, and I'm arguing with her that I think I might have broken it, it's obviously not just a jam. After all, I can't move part my finger and it hurt hundreds of times worse than any jam I'd ever had. She relents and calls my mom, telling her that I jammed my finger. You could hear my mom on the other end of the phone, obviously quite annoyed "You woke me up because he jammed his finger?!" The nurse told her I think I did something worse to it and want to go to the doctor. My mom finally agrees to come and pick me up, and I'm now frightened because she thinks I got her out of bed because of a simple jammed finger. She shows up later, obviously not in a good mood, takes one look at my finger and says "Damnit, we have to go the doctor. That is not just a jam. You're lucky. I would have killed you if it was just a jammed finger. I had JUST gotten to sleep when they called me." I had popped the tendon off my finger.

[ShortTemperHatesStupidity]

Not my mom, but definitely slacked a bit...

I had recently healed from a broken wrist and was playing at my babysitters house (this was no 14 year old either... I think she was in her 30's or 40's). All of us were in the backyard playing while the sitter was inside watching tv-great to be unsupervised huh? So anyway, I'm climbin on a barrel and fall off. All of a sudden the wrist that had just healed wasn't working. Couldn't move it, and it hurt when I let it flop around. Lady told me to shake it off, that I'd be fine. This was early in the morning My grandma, who was a RN at the time, came to pick me up that afternoon and nearly lost it when she saw. She was uber-pissed that this lady didn't take me seriously, especially having just healed there. My wrist has never been the same...

[Noelegy]

Ooh, I've got one...

My parents had one of those old-fashioned Exercycles, the kind that plugs in and scissors back and forth in sort of a rowing motion while you cycle. It sat in their kitchen. I wouldn't use the thing because I was scared of it. But one day it was turned off and I was sitting on it like a stool, with one leg tucked up under the other. My little brother and dad were also in the kitchen, and my little brother, notorious for being a prankster, darted forward and said, "So you want to try it out?" He turned on the power and the thing started moving.

While trying to get my legs untangled, my left foot got caught in the moving parts. The pressure/resistance could be adjusted up to 200 lbs, which it was. Four of my five metatarsals snapped like pretzel logs, and my ankle was nearly broken, too. My dad and brother did not immediately realize that I was actually hurt. Finally, I got the thing turned off, and limped away cursing my brother. My dad said, "Walk it off. You'll be fine."

I couldn't put any weight on the foot the next morning, and it was blown up like a bruisy balloon. I had to wait a week for the swelling to go down before a cast could be applied, and I had to be on crutches for a month. Fortunately, my brother was abjectly guilt-ridden for his little prank, and I got him to carry books and open doors for a long time after that.

That was 19 years ago. I still can't completely curl those toes on my left foot. My parents still have the Exercycle, and my dad is always "kiddingly" asking me if I want to give it a try.

[tollbaby]

Well, not nearly as serious as the last few, but I'll never forget this one occasion in grade 6. I hadn't been feeling well and told my mom that my stomach hurt. She said "You're just trying to get out of going to school!".... told the babysitter later when I was getting ready for the school bus that I really didn't feel well, and she said "You're just trying to get out of going to school!" (notice a pattern here? Funny thing was, I'd *Never* used any excuse to try to get out of going to school before!)

Got to school, told my homeroom teacher that I didn't feel well, and SHE said (say it with me now kids), "You're just trying to get out of being at school". WTF was up with that? Geez! I had perfect attendance too!

Went to gym class and I *really* wasn't feeling well. Told the gym teacher, and HE said "You're just trying to get out of gym class"... well, okay, that one was plausible. I was all legs and very klutzy and hated gym class. But eventually he sent me to the nurse's office.

The NURSE says "You're just trying to get out of gym class." ...... and that, ladies and gentlemen, is when I spewed all over her office, forcing my babysitter and then my mother to come to the school because I had also managed to get most of my clothing and the sitter had no spare clothes at her house

[Kusanagi]

I've heard of this problem before, in the oddest place.

GO TEAM VENTURE!

Damn, I wanted to say that.

[trunks2k]

Another story of people not listening to when it comes to ailments:

I was roomates with my ex girlfriend for about six months a few years ago. We were at the time, and still are, close friends despite having dated eachother, except she got a little stubborn when it came to listening to me. She got sick and initially thought it was just a stomach bug. Except the bug lasted several days and she just kept getting worse and worse. At the time, we didn't see much of eachother since we had opposing schedules, so I really didn't see how drastically worse she got. One day we went out to dinner with some other friends and she was throwing up, even though she hadn't eaten anything all day. This kinda set off alarm bells and I told her she needs to go to the doctor. She didn't listen to me. Next day, same thing. I keep telling her that she really needs to go to the doctor. Next day, I get out of bed and she's not in her room or anywhere else in the apartment. I figured she was at someone else's house for the night. I head off to work and get all from her dad. She was in the hospital, she had emergency surgery because her appendix was about to burst.

Now she listens to me when I tell her to go to the doctor.

[Jester]

The NURSE says "You're just trying to get out of gym class." ...... and that, ladies and gentlemen, is when I spewed all over her office, forcing my babysitter and then my mother to come to the school because I had also managed to get most of my clothing and the sitter had no spare clothes at her house

This is getting way off topic, but I just HAVE to tell y'all The Greatest Puke Story Ever. I wish I could have been there for it myself, but I wasn't--I heard it from my school friend Ben--it happened to him when he was in grade school in Texas.

The whole class was quiet, doing their busy work. Suddenly, from the back of the room, you hear "There is a disturbance in the Force."

And then the kid heaved.

You've GOT TO love a kid who, knowing he is going to be sick, makes a joke like that, basically calling his shot. I only wish I was ever that brilliant. (Then again, I am blessed by the fact that I don't puke.) That kid, wherever he may be, will forever be my hero!

[Cia]

When I was 13/14 I feel off the top bunk onto a carpeted concrete floor and landed on top of my left wrist, bending it backwards. It hurt so bad that I cried. I couldn't move my wrist w/o great pain and could barely move my fingers, which also hurt like hell. I wanted to go to the doctor but my Mom, being a former x-ray tech in the Navy, decided that it was sprained and not broken. She decided that since I could barely move my fingers that it wasn't broken. I even told her that I want an x-ray and a real doctor telling me that it wasn't broken and not some former Navy Wave, who hadn't seen an x-ray machine in over 16 years, tell me if my swelled up wrist wasn't broken.

To this day it pisses me off. I eventually wrapped my wrist up in an Ace bandage for support. It was weeks before I could use my wrist again w/o pain and it still occasionally hurts when it's cold out.

I wonder if you can tell if a bone has been broken, years after the fact, on an x-ray.

[trunks2k]

I wonder if you can tell if a bone has been broken, years after the fact, on an x-ray.

You often can. I believe the healed fractures will be apparent on an X-ray.

[BookstoreEscapee]

I wonder if you can tell if a bone has been broken, years after the fact, on an x-ray.

You probably can. They are always seeing healed fractures on x-rays on SVU and ER... . My friend has a bump on her finger right above the knuckle, that she's had since she was a little kid. When she was a teenager her mom asked the doctor about it and they checked it out. Said it had been broken at some point and since it wasn't set properly it formed the bump. She was told they could re-break it and set it so it would heal straight. She declined.

My cousin's son was having bad stomach pains for quite a while a few years ago, and they thought he just didn't want to go to school, and chalked it up to stress since anxiety problems run in the family. When they finally took him to the doctor they found out he had gallstones and had to have his gallbladder removed. He was 10 at the time.

-ams-

[LewisLegion]

I got hurt a lot as a kid. Thing is I'm not a baby about it so people didn't really believe me a lot of times...except my mother, god bless her.

I've sprained my ankle several times. I don't know if this happens for everyone else, but the instant I sprain it there's a burst of terrific pain (basically saying, 'hey, you butthead, you did it again'), and then almost immediately it goes away. It will then slowly build again over the next few hours as my ankle swells up and then aches miserably until its healed.

First time I sprained it was gym class. The teacher was a walking testicle who thought all girls were fluffbrained whiners who didn't want to exercise. I was running around the track when I turned my foot on a rock or something. As the pain stopped almost immediately and I could walk on it, I didn't think it was terribly hurt, but when I tried to run again it would yell at me. So I limped over to the teacher and told him I wanted to see the nurse. He basically called me a liar and thought I was using an excuse to sit down and not finish my laps.

Since it was feeling better and since I could not at that time stand up for myself at all, I went through the rest of my day with a very badly sprained ankle. It had me in tears by sixth period and I still walked home on it, thinking I had to be the biggest baby in the world because the gym teacher had said it wasn't hurt. My mom saw my tears and got the story from me. She took my shoe off and saw it swollen and bruised and took me immediately to the docs.

Showed up the next day on crutches. Gym teacher huffs, "oh, I guess there was something wrong with it."

Asshat.

I remember once when the docs screwed up. Mom took me into the ER because I had fallen and coudn't move my arm it hurt so bad. They took x-rays, told my mother that it was fine, I was just being whiney, and discharged me. Walking back across the parking lot a nurse ran out and waved us down. Turns out they had looked at the wrong persons x-rays and I did indeed have a very bad break.

If my mother had been the suing kind...

[SongsOfDragons]

People always listened to me if I said I had a bad headache in school. First it was migraines, and after summer 2001 this got a little more worrisome as more than once these headaches were the onset of a full-on spazz. I fitted majorly twice during secondary school and had one partial.

Though I haven't yet had any broken bones... *crosses fingers*

[Arcade Man D]

Hmm.... lesee. My folks weren't too bad, though they were reluctant to take me in for my broken arm. But that was because, instead of going into my friend's house and calling to get picked up, I walked home to tell them. And it was the day of the St. Patrick's Day Parade.

When I sprained my wrist, they waited, but it really was only sprained, and being as how my previous fracture had only been a buckle fracture, I knew it was only a sprain. It didn't quite hurt enough to be a break.

When I sprained my ankle, I was at karate, and my sensei had watched me sprain it. Trust me, landing on the blade of your foot off a flying side kick == Bad Idea.

The one they really took forever on ((well, actually, half of that was me ignoring it for a few weeks)) was actually a problem I'd had all my life. High arches. My calves eventually tired of supporting them, and my lower legs started aching all the time. It turns out that my arches had basically reached the point where they could fall at any time. And there's nothing to do about it but not get to go barefoot/without proper arch support longer than switching between shoes/showering.

[Becks]

And there's nothing to do about it but not get to go barefoot/without proper arch support longer than switching between shoes/showering.

This probably is a stupid question but I have to ask anyway... Does that mean you have to wear shoes when you sleep?

[AFpheonix]

Maybe I'm just a wierdo, but I've always found it to be much more painful to sprain something than it does to break it, and soft tissue stuff seems to take longer to heal on me, too.