Splint: $5.99, Co-pay: $20, BelievingYour Parents: Priceless

Both my daughters are playing soccer this spring, which is funny because they are together two of the most non-athletic, uncoordinated children you’ve ever seen. They come by it naturally. I have broken seven of my own ten toes in various clumsy acts, one of which I like to refer to as “chronic terminal stubbing.” Their father once broke his arm most impressively while killing a roach. Clearly, we are not making any Mia Hamms in this gene pool.

So it should come as no surprise that one of the girls has already suffered a soccer-related injury. S, who is renowned for her frequent tumbles down the stairs, was playing goalie at her last soccer game. She has already let one ball roll right past her, forgetting that the magic of playing goalie was the ability to use her hands. When the next kick sent the ball her way, she reached right out and stopped it. We all cheered. S looked at me and said, “My finger hurts.” She came over to us and sat down, holding up her right pinkie for us to see. It looked much like a finger should. And she wasn’t crying. We offered her something to drink, and she went back in and finished the game, not as a goalie this time, but rather as one of those kids who kind of runs in circles and never quite gets close enough to kick the ball. I don’t know what position it is, but that’s okay, because never did she, nor did any of her team.
With her game finished, she might have mentioned again in passing about her finger hurting, but it was time to eat lunch. W Then later, when my other daughter played her game, S went searching for caterpillars in the trees, bringing them back on a stick, naming them good caterpillar names like Sticky and Callie and my favorite, Fasty. She got bored with her livestock and again mumbled about her finger hurting. I told her we would get some ice for it when the game was finished.

After E’s game ended, we went home, took showers, and watched some of a movie. And periodically, S would say something about her hurt finger. No tears. No moaning. No sign for worry.

Until about 4:00, when she said, “Mom, my finger still really hurts.”
“Let me take a look at it,” I told her. She waved it in my face. Holy crap! Her finger had turned thirty different shapes of purple and was about three times the size of the other fingers sharing the hand. It looked like a Vienna sausage that had been left out in the sun for two days. “I think it might be broken. K, come take a look at it.”
My husband shuffled over and peered at the pinkie. “It’s probably just sprained. Fingers get jammed all the time. Can you move it?” he asked S. She tried, but with all the swelling, it wasn’t too movable.
“Do you think we should go to the ER?” I asked in my worried mom voice.
“What for?” he said. “They don’t do anything for pinkies. I’ll look online and see what it says.”

Like most people in the modern age, my husband takes more stock in what Dr. Google has to say than an actual live doctor. Especially if it kept us out of the emergency room on a Saturday night. I decided to call the pediatrician to confirm our choice to not examine the pinkie, while S wandered into the other room to practice piano. About the time I spoke with the nurse is when finally, the crying started.

“Has she been crying like this all day?” the nurse asked me pointedly.
“No,” I replied. “Just since I made her practice piano.”

Dr. Google recommended icing and a finger splint, and the nurse didn’t say anything we wanted to hear, so we moseyed over to the CVS and found what I could only assume was a toe splint, the perfect size for a 7 year old pinkie. We splinted her, gave her Motrin, and considered it fixed.

The next day, while visiting the girls’ grandparents, S showed off her shiny pinkie splint, which we had taken to calling her robot finger. “K, you ought to x-ray that at your office,” my father in law said. Did I mention my husband is a dentist? Well, he is. And while he does not have x-ray vision, something I know he yearns for, he does have access to the next best thing. We left my in-law’s house and drove straight to his office. K got everything set up and took out a couple of bitewing x-ray films, you know, the ones that irritate the crap out of the side of your cheeks as you hold still with that metal ray gun cone pointed at your head. He positioned S’s finger on the counter, a bitewing film underneath it, and aimed his x-ray cylinder pointing straight down above it. We all skedaddled out of the room and K zapped her picture. Then he repositioned her finger for a side view, and did it again. The girls raided the treasure drawer of free kids’ dental crap like tattoos and bouncy balls while we waited for the x-rays to develop. K popped them on the light box, and lo and behold, we had two one inch square x-rays of a pinkie. Luckily, there was no Frankenstein crack running along the bone, so we congratulated ourselves for not over reacting and went home to get ready for bed.

Later, as I tucked S in and kissed her good night, she said to me, “Mommy, can you please take me to the doctor tomorrow? “
“Is it bothering you worse, baby?” I asked her.
“No, I just want someone who knows what they’re doing to look at it.”

After dropping E off at school in the morning, S and I went to see the doctor. We had our bitewing finger x-rays with us, finger splinted in its metal casing, when we went back to the exam room.

When Dr. P came in the room, he took one look at the sleeve of x-rays and said, “What’s that?”
“Oh, those are her x-rays,” I said smugly for being so thoughtful and prepared, like it was a college entrance exam instead of a physical one.
He stared at them for a minute. He looked back at me. “They’re kind of small.”
“Yes, well, my husband is a dentist.” I told him.
He looked at me some more. Then he shook his head slightly. He picked up the films and peered at them, holding them up to the fluorescent light overhead. He looked back at me again. “Do you mind standing?” He asked me.
I stood up, and Dr. P grabbed my chair and put it directly under the fluorescent light. Then he stood on the chair and held the x-rays right up to the light again. “It’s a finger!” he announced. He examined it some more, then said to me, “See right here, by the top joint? That’s where it’s broken.” He handed it to me and I pretended to see what he was talking about. “Mmm hmmm, I think you’re right,” I said.
“Well, it looks like you just need to splint it, S.” He picked up her right hand. “Where’d you find such a tiny splint?”
“CVS,” I announced proudly.

He took the splint off her finger and moved her bruised pinkie, flexing and bending it. “Looks like no ligament damage. It still moves well. S, you need to wear that splint for about two weeks. After that, you should tape it for another week, and then we’ll see how it feels.” He put the splint back on her. “Just keep doing what you’re doing. “ He patted her back, friendly-like.
“Could you please tell her that her parents did the right thing, Dr. P?” I asked.
“They did,” he said, addressing my daughter, who still looked skeptical.

We are on week two of finger splinting. Piano practice is difficult, as is any homework, washing hands, or carrying lunchboxes. Luckily, the broken finger doesn’t interfere with her ability to play with toys, sleep, eat chips, hold hands, carry the cat, or surprisingly, play soccer. But she does refuse to be goalie again.