Hell’s Half Acre

except for the price. Today we had the joy of experiencing the US health care system. If you’ve been following the pictures in Flickr, you will have seen that the boys are exploring skateboarding. Some of you may have seen the future from the first picture but I was not among you. The boys’ friend, Andy (honestly, much like a third son to me) is an amazing athlete. Any sport he develops an interest in, begins to dabble in, the coaches and assistants see the immense potential and try to sign him into contracts of time. His long love has been hockey however, and in the last year or so has begun to dabble in skateboarding. The boys have never been on a skateboard, but with a wonderful skatepark (Andy had never been to it before, but pronounced it the best in the area!) within a mile or two of Aunty Chris and Uncle Chet’s home, it has become the favorite.

Pike takes things nice and easy and it took him a good day to warm up to skateboarding, but by the second day he was riding like a champ. I am really so proud of him and it was his moment to shine as his older brother (sunburnt with limelight) was not ready to stand up and board; preferring to “buttboard”. Since the skatepark is only open after school hours are over the boys were killing time one day and skateboarding nearby when Pike had a small accident and injured his arm. At first we thought it was a wrist issue and after consulting Dr. Google decided to wait, ice and elevate. Today the arm was little better but waiting allowed the true location of the injury to be exposed and mother’s intuition (and a lump on his forearm) led me to take him to an urgent care clinic for examination. We waited only 10 minutes or so, saw the doc pretty soon afterward, waited for the Xray guy to come back from a late lunch (in Mexico, he’d be eating on the equipment :)) and got the X-rays. The X-ray tech had us wait while he developed the films and then immediately showed them to us (before the doc!) and pointed out the break (it wasn’t hard to miss). Luckily it was a clean break and after we convinced the doc we didn’t need an orthopedic specialist she screwed up her courage and announced that while she’s only done one cast this year, she’d do Pike’s cast herself! It was great; she was very easy to talk to, really seemed to enjoy the visit and made sure we’d call if there were any problems; gave us her work hours and number. Only difference in Mexico would be getting the doc’s home phone. So it was a wonderful experience for us all and only $292 for everything and only took 2 hours. He is not thrilled with the cast, but it is much more comfortable and less painful with the support it provides.