The Hospital Fairy: Magic for Severe Boo-Boos and Long E.R Visits

... I am beginning to believe that I carry a yearly jinx. I'm not quite sure how to express the exact term via verbiage, but once a year - rather, once a summer, someone I know goes to the E.R.

Correction: I *take* someone I know to the E.R.

But! Before you - if I know you and if you are within a vicinity of five miles (give or a take a few hundred) of me, and have suddenly had the urge to FLEE! FLEE BEFORE I COME FOR YOU AS WELL! - keep in mind that it deals with only minor injuries and inconveniences.
so... you know... if you don't mind spending a few hours waiting to see if you need either an amputation or a bag of ice... want to hang out? You have until next summer before you have to start getting worried, because well... The Hospital Fairy already visited this year.

It started two summers ago - I was a relatively green camp counselor for the YMCA, and Freddy was the 12-year-old only child of a slightly neurotic woman and her panic-jaded husband. (Before I start to sound mean - they interacted adorably.) Freddy, as must be told, was at summer camp for the very first time. At age 12, this is a problem - as an only child, it is the making for a catastrophe. You see, day camps - such as the one that I worked for - take children off of their parents hands, wear them out while "having fun" - also known as every physical activity known to man that will burn off sticky PB+J sandwiches and ice cream cones - and then send them back exhausted and unable to do anything but eat their broccoli, answer their parents questions about their days with monosyllable words, and crash into bed, Duck Tales p.j's half-on. If you think about it, it's genius - every summer, ages 6 through 13, parents can literally - and quite cleverly - buy themselves some breathing room, a quieter house, and their children's supervision until school starts again.

However, can you now see the potential problem with Freddy? A great kid - polite, fun to watch.... but someone who had never been truly "allowed" a whole summer without Mom and Dad always around. No day camp, retreat, exile, nada. Thus - while Freddy was excited to experience what we called "All Sports Camp" for the week, his mother was a wreck.
... It didn't help that his first day of camp involved ice skating. Dear Sweet Mother of God, the woman sent him to a place where she was convinced - and no one could persuade her otherwise - that Freddy - sweet, adorable, polite, precious Freddy - was going to fall and crack his head open. She spent 20 minutes holding up the bus instructing me - "just one more time", that if there wasn't proper padding, helmets, etc, he was not to skate. If he was too cold, he was not to skate. If he experienced a momentary stab of anything but sheer bliss, he was not to skate.

And good God, if he did fall and crack his head open, please call her, the ambulance, her husband, and then her again.

Well, Freddy didn't manage to crack his head open, but he did fall. The boy broke the laws of physics - and this I still do not understand - but not only did he manage to fall and slit his own wrist ... but he slit the wrist with the foot from the same side. Landed on his butt, but somehow became a contortionist to pull that off.

And... guess who had to make that phone call home??

Later, as I was running through the incident with my boss, I couldn't help but notice that, within the actual ambulance, Freddy was brilliant. Calm, cool, joked, enjoyed the ride, if you will. His mother, on the other hand, who met us at the hospital, looked as if she had aged a thousand years and had decided that summer camp was no longer a possibility ever, ever again. Mrs. Freddy's Mom made the word "panic" look like "serene lake at sunset".
But perhaps I just don't know this woman - when Mr. Freddy's Dad appeared some 20 minutes into our ER visit, he seemed to expect a quivering blob of crying motherly mess, and was surprised that she was only shaking ever so slightly. (Keep in mind that Freddy managed to miss everything important with the blade - not to make light of it, but if he had to cut himself on the wrist, he did a great job of cutting in the right spot.)

"See?", she trembled, as he sat down: "I barely panicked at all!"

Makes the possible broken arm (kid was a drama queen and wasn't even bruised), and the stress fracture this year ... look easy as cupcakes.