Achy Breaky

The jury is in. Ruby's arm is broken. It happened Saturday during Ari's soccer game. Ruby was hanging upsidedown on the "bar" when an ugly little girl in a light blue soccer jersey shouted at her, "Get off!" and pushed her. OK, the girl wasn't ugly, and I don't know who she was, but I'm still a little mad at her, bless her little heart. Grrrrrr! It's the mother bear instinct.

Ruby fell right on her arm, and although she cried and complained about it, I thought she'd be fine. I'm from the "It's Just Growing Pains" school of thought. Maybe there isn't a school, but that's what my mom always said, and it's what I always say, too. To my credit, I did take her in for X-rays, where the on-call doctor gave her a sling and said if it still hurt Monday, it was probably broken. Genius.

With the help of a mega-dose of ibuprofen, Ruby valiantly went to a birthday party, a food festival at the Thai Buddhist temple, swimming with cousins and out to dinner. If you're going to be miserable, you might as well have fun at the same time, right? Towards the end, though, she wasn't having a whole lot of fun.

This morning, Dr. Scheu. helped us get into a great orthopedic surgeon. (Thanks, Mike!) Although the doctor couldn't figure out how to enlarge the X-ray on the computer screen, he was able to diagnose a frature by putting his face close to the screen and squinting. Not exactly standard procedure, but I'll take it. Notwithstanding his obvious lack of tech savvy, the doctor was knowledgable and efficient. Within minutes, Ruby was sporting a bright pink cast, set at just the right angle to allow guitar practicing. Because I'm a bad mom AND a mean mom!

Ruby immediately felt better, with the cast protecting her tender arm, and her mind at ease. My uncle had the best advice about this whole scenario. At the Thai festival Saturday, he pointed out the Buddhist monks in their orange robes and told Ruby how they try to live good, simple lives and treat people with kindness. They love peace and try to set a good example. With that said, he told Ruby, "There are jerks in the world. You'll run into about one a year. Don't let it affect you." That simple advice makes this whole episode seem like a minor inconvenience in the whole scheme of things. It could have been a lot worse. We don't even have to worry about it one bit. We'll just be thankful Ruby doesn't have to run into another jerk for a whole year, if all goes according to Uncle Jim's Philosophy of Life!