A traumatic morning

Poor Lily. She gets the Brave Girl award for the day. Yesterday morning I drove the 1st graders to school and came home to find Lily on the sofa in tears with an ice pack on her left foot. It turns out she had been messing around with B's very heavy industrial-strength back massager and had dropped it on her big toe. Her toe had immediately turned purple under the nail, despite the ice pack.

Lily hobbled around all day yesterday. It was easier for her to walk with shoes on, so she wore her new fancy dress shoes most of the time. I had sent a note to preschool for her teacher about it, just in case Lily's toe started hurting too much at school. She made it through the day, though.

Unfortunately, her toe hurt enough during the night that she woke up in tears. B took care of her, giving her a drink and some Tylenol and letting her watch some recorded cartoons with him before packing her back in bed with ice on her foot.

Despite B's protestations that Lily's toe was fine, I called the doctor this morning and scheduled an appointment. (If you're squeamish, stop reading.) The doctor had to poke a hole in Lily's toenail to relieve the pressure underneath. I was amazed at how gentle he was with the procedure. Lily only whimpered a few times. To poke the hole, the doc took a needle and turned it and turned it until it had bored a hole in the nail. As soon as he broke through the nail, ooze seeped out. Lily was fascinated, but I had to look at the ceiling. The needle didn't make a big enough hole, so the doctor then used the tip of a scalpel to make the hole larger. This was the only time Lily cried.

We have to soak her toe in warm water a few times a day to help flush out the stuff under her toenail. And we have to keep it bandaged, which is a good thing because it's still oozing.

I was going to take Lily back to school after her appointment because I was helping parent this morning, but she and I were both so traumatized - me more than her, I think - that I called the school and told them we wouldn't be back. Instead, we went home, and I let her curl up on the sofa and watch cartoons.

Her toe is already looking lots better, even if it is all oozy. It seems to be hurting her less, too. I'm hoping it will be healed enough by Thursday that she'll be able to go to her last ballet class for the fall. She loves dancing so much that I hate for her to miss a day.