I'm Not a Doctor . . .

But I am a mom of three boys. The eldest will be thirty-five in February, so I've had many years of diagnosing injuries and illnesses. I'm pretty good at it, even from afar, which is good since my kids don't live at home anymore. Still, they call me to assess their conditions over the phone: "Mom, I sliced my toe open; it's kind of deep. Do you think I need stitches?" "Hey, Mom, blood is pouring out of my ear. I should probably go to the doctor. What do you think?" Those were easy ones (and both from the same kid a few years apart), but some are more difficult.

This morning, as I had just begun a scoring session, a different son texted me to tell me his neck hurt and he couldn't move his head. Alarm bells started sounding for me, if not for him. Because he is a college student, my first thought was meningitis. I'm not usually dramatic in my medical assessments, but both his symptoms -- and that disease -- are nothing to play around with. So we went back and forth for awhile, and this is where it gets tricky. When they were little, or even older kids living at home, I could just drag their sick or hurt asses into the doctor or hospital (as the situation warranted). Now they are grown men, and I really can't make them do anything. I can only suggest. So I suggested strongly that he go to an urgent care center (he hasn't had a doctor near school, and our family doctor is all the way back up here in Jacksonville). In my opinion, urgent care centers are dice rolls; sometimes you get a doctor who knows what s/he is doing, sometimes not.

This afternoon he decided to go and just a few minutes ago he let me know that x-rays showed that he tore several muscles in his neck and they seized up. That's not terrific, but it's better than many other potential outcomes. He'll take muscle relaxants for a few days and likely be good as new. The doctor at the urgent care also set him up with a primary care physician. I'm really glad about that too. I never mind being Dr. Mom, but it stresses me out when it's from a distance. (And, as an aside, I'm proud of myself for not immediately rushing to his side to make everything better. Not only is it good for him to learn to handle such incidents on his own, but I would have had to cancel both my class tomorrow and my meeting with the dean for the new class I'm taking on. It would have been completely unnecessary.)