Knee of nastiness

Our five-year-old was sick.


For some households, that’s a daily occurrence. But when you live with a child who’s healthier than God, you get a little spoiled.

So when the fever started at midnight and he wandered into our bedroom asking to share some space, it was hard to turn him down.

But I was less than enthusiastic to share our queen-sized bed with two other humans.

Correction: I was less than enthusiastic about the five-inch strip of mattress along the edge of the bed that I had been assigned.

After getting the little guy settled with the big guy, I grabbed my pillow and headed into the guest room in search of wider pastures.

I collapsed on the bed and went to sleep. All was great.

Until 3 a.m. Then all hell broke loose.

It was a scream like no other. Stabbing and full of blood-curling agony.

It pierced through my sleep-addled mind and sent me on full alert. I’m a mom. It’s in my genetic code to Move-Assess-Defend.

I catapulted out of bed and took two quick steps.

And that’s when the Tilt-A-Whirl started, and I thought to myself, “Self? How in the hell did you get on a Tilt-A-Whirl at 3 in the morning?!”

And the next thing I knew I was falling face first. My knees skidded along the floor. My shoulder rammed into the door frame. I landed hard on my wrist and felt a large pop in my bicep.

But nothing was gonna stop me. I started crawling. And yelling. “OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD! OHMYGOD!”

OK. I’m usually calmer under pressure. But that scream had scared the you-know-what right outta me.

I dragged my battered body across the hall and into our bedroom. In the darkness, I could make out the outline form of my husband sitting up in bed. He shouted, “Are you OK?!”

I reached over and grabbed Gabe. “Answer Daddy!”

A pause, then my husband pointed at me and clarified, “I’m talking to you!”

That’s when I noticed our son had already fallen back asleep. Oh. Guess we’ll mark this one up to a bad dream and move along.

I sighed in relief then shrugged my shoulders and answered sweetly, “Why? What did I do?”

He snorted in response and said, “Out there. Across the hallway. What the hell happened to you?”

“Oh.” Pause. “That.” Another pause. “I ran into a little trouble.”

My husband asked, “What kind of trouble?”

Sigh. “My feet.”

I reached over and clicked on the table lamp. I closed my eyes and asked my husband, “How bad is it?”

I heard him shuffle a bit closer, followed by “Ewww!”

I cracked one eye slowly open and peered down. My right knee didn’t look too bad. Already swelling like I’d taken a baseball bat to it, but no blood. That was good.

Then my vision shifted over to the left leg and - !

It looked like I had raked it with a cheese grater then smacked it with a hammer then finished it off with a hot iron set to steam.

And it was oozing something that probably could be used for some whacked out Voodoo ritual involving a skinned chicken.

I flopped back onto the floor, landed on my busted shoulder, dropped the F bomb then gently rolled onto the other side.

“Are you just gonna sleep there?” my husband asked.

What a stupid question. I was never going to sleep again. I ignored him and asked, “Am I gonna need a skin graft or something?”

“No,” he chucked. “It’ll be OK.”

I didn’t believe him and gestured toward the knee of nastiness. “Seriously? I’m gonna need a skin graft. Maybe I’ll get lucky and the doctors will take it off my rear.”

“You won’t need a skin graft, and they won’t take it off your rear,” he muttered, grabbing his pillow and covers and obviously planning to go back to sleep. Oh. I don’t think so.

“Why not?” I asked. “I’ve got a lot to spare back there.”