Someone came into the faculty room today wearing a terrific purple corduroy shirt, and I said, "Hey, I like you shirt! That's my favorite shade of purple!" and I held out the tattoo so she could see it was the same color. And she answered "It's not purple, it's eggplant."
But I don't want to change my name to The Eggplant Chai. That just sounds stupid. That is the color, though. Eggplant.
Okay.
So she went to the doctor and does not have a broken collarbone. Apparently, her shoulder does not fit in its socket the way shoulders are meant to, and the curve of her neck is non-existent. People, it seems, are supposed to have a curve in their necks that matches the angle of some other curve someplace, and she doesn't, and this causes a whole lot of stress and problems and pain. She's going to physical therapy and whatnot, and maybe this will help. In fact, I know it will, at least in the short term. Long term? I don't know. I'm not good so far with the thought that my child is going to live with a certain amount of regular pain for the next sixty or seventy years. I'm not saying that this is the worst thing that could happen, not by a long shot, because last night my feverish little brain was thinking it was maybe a tumor in the bone (because that's the way I think), so I know this isn't any kind of life-threatening thing and of course I'm very very happy about that. I'm just saying. You know. Remember, my kids were in the drama club; they haven't experienced a whole lot of sports injuries, as many of you have gone through with your kids. And I know she's not a child, but that really couldn't be more irrelevant. She sounded a little overwhelmed and bummed when she was leaving the doctor's office and called me (as I knew she would), but stoic little Jack's grandchild that she is, she sounded a lot better and even upbeat when she called an hour later to say that she's made an appointment for physical therapy this afternoon.
I ditched the GSA meeting this afternoon anyway. I'm not in the mood to hear the whiny pest who has recently joined our ranks and who is willing to drone on endlessly about anything but the topic at hand, let alone about what we're there for. Although she did say something last week about "what the homosexuals want." What I wanted was to smack her face, smug little snot. Okay, that didn't sound too good-teachery, did it? I make no apologies.
Back to the shoulder thing, when I was telling the Colleague about it after R called, I said "But how could this happen? It's not as if her shoulder just grew wrong!", but she said that's probably exactly what happened. Is it? Of course it is; why can't I get that? I mean, what made an acoustic neuroma grow in my head? I don't know; it just did. Here's an old family joke: My father had some condition, I believe it's called a hiatal hernia, that he was born with. I think that's the only way a person can have a hiatal hernia. It was undiagnosed until he went for his army physical, at which time they told him about it and said they could operate on him and fix it, or he could just leave it and it might never act up. It never did. But when he told his mother about it, she shook her finger in his face and said "You go back to that doctor and tell him you were born perfect!" She meant it, I think, at least the part about believing that he had been born perfect. So of course, when everyone stopped crying after I told them I had a brain tumor, my father said "You tell that doctor you were born perfect." Is that it, the secure belief that my children were born perfect? Or that all of us believe we are born perfect unless -- or until -- reality proves otherwise?
I'm not tearing myself up over this -- it's not a tumor, after all, and I do have perspective -- but I feel so bad for her. And I know that she's unwilling to recognize the possibility that she was not born perfect. That's what it is, really, knowing that she may have a hard time dealing with this. Wow. You never really do stop being a parent.
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I'm watching Dr. Phil
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