Arriving at home after work last night, I pulled the car into the carport. Before I could even turn the engine off, my ears were seared by a piercing, wailing howl, as 7M ran screaming out the back door of the house, followed closely by 6F. He was obviously in pain, and I tried to get him to calm down enough to tell me what had happened, to no avail. 6F finally explained that they had been making dinner - a ham roast - and, taking the pan out of the oven, 7M had spilled a bit of the liquid (mostly water, with a bit of grease) on his foot. So I quickly removed his hot-liquid-soaked sock, and ran him inside to get some cold water on his scalded foot, while he wailed the whole time. . .
(*sigh*)
It's always so nice to come home to the peaceful, happy bosom of my family, you know?
(And of course, yesterday was the Feast of the Immaculate Conception (one of those Catholic Holy Days of Obligation), which, for purposes of this story, meant that Molly was gone to church at the time. And after that, she had her Women's Group meeting, so I was kinda 'winging it on the fly'. . .)
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Once he got calmed down a bit, and the immediate, searing pain gave way to something a bit more endurable, we saw that he had sustained second-degree burns on two of his toes, and a small portion of the top of his foot. Which ain't gonna maim him for life, so that's good. But, in the immediate near-term, it still hurts like hell. And feet being what they are, associated with how we usually transport ourselves from one place to the next, the consequences of the injury sort-of radiate out. Just getting him comfortable enough to fall asleep last night was a project of more-than-modest proportions, involving duct-taping an ice-bag to his poor scalded foot.
And then this morning, we had the whole question of what to do with it, so 7M (who is well on the way to adopting as his personal motto, "Why Does This Stuff Keep Happening to Me?") could go to school. We finally settled on a fresh ice-bag, with a fresh batch of duct-tape, all wrapped in a towel, secured by more duct-tape. We retrieved a pair of crutches from the attic, and he was good to go.
Except that last night, we got our first snowfall of the season, and everything was a slushy, sloppy mess. So that, by the time 7M made his way up to the second-floor classroom, his improvised ice-bag/towel/sock/boot arrangement was soaked with black slop, and the school (understandably, I suppose), concerned about it getting infected, called Molly (who had one of her rare early-morning shifts of work) to come and pick him up. (I mean, don't these folks know that we've got a life beyond bouncing back and forth to pick up and drop off our kids?) (I'm kidding, in case anyone is wondering. . .)
(*sigh*)
So now the poor kid gets to go see the doctor this afternoon, and get a real dressing put on his injured foot, so perhaps he can play in the school band's Christmas concert tonight. But he's probably gonna have to miss his basketball game this weekend. . .
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La-la, how the life goes on. . .
Showing posts with label injury. Show all posts
Showing posts with label injury. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Monday, June 1, 2009
Hazards of Catholic Worship
Back last fall, during the Great Midwestern Blogger Get-Together, Molly and I went to Sunday Mass with Therese and RS. As it turned out, the church we went to was being remodeled, so Mass was held in the church basement, instead. While we sat quietly, waiting for Mass to begin, we noticed that several people had brought foam seat-pads with them - the kind that folks will take to football games, so they get a little more padding than just sitting on bare bleachers. I thought that was passing curious, and wondered what was going on.
Until it came to that portion of the Mass where the congregation kneels. It being the church basement, we had only the hard cement floor, covered with a thin layer of floor tiles, upon which to kneel. And this was a Latin High Mass (a very cool experience in and of itself), so the 'kneeling parts' were a fair bit longer than what I'm used to in my home parish, besides the fact that we were kneeling on concrete. So, when it was time to kneel, the 'locals' tossed their foam pads onto the floor, as a sort-of 'roll-your-own' kneeler, and saved themselves a half-hour's wear-and-tear on their kneecaps. For my part, when Mass was over, I hobbled down the aisle, and up the stairs, like a man much older than I already am.
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The Catholic Mass, along with the Orthodox Liturgy, and a few other 'high church' liturgies, contains a series of shifting body positions, in the course of a normal worship service. Some clever types have referred to this as 'Catholic Calisthenics' - stand, kneel, sit, repeat as necessary. It can be a little bewildering the first time a visitor attends a Mass. My family is not Catholic (I converted when I was in college), and I once caused a minor scene at a cousin's Catholic wedding, by whispering 'Catholic Calisthenics' to my sister, during one of the stand-kneel-sit cycles, which caused her to burst out laughing. And generally speaking, there are no good times to burst out laughing during Mass. In case anyone was wondering.
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So, last week, 6F graduated from 8th grade at Tiny Catholic School, and, as Catholics are wont to do, they celebrated the auspicious occasion with a Mass. The liturgy moved into the Eucharistic Prayers, which is where most of the kneeling happens.
Now, in 35 years of being Catholic, I've become fairly adept at flipping the kneeler down into position with my toe. Molly used to admonish me that that's a minor breach of Catholic etiquette, that the proper form is to sit, and put the kneeler down with one's hand, but I can always plead my convert status, that I was never properly taught the subtle fine points of Mass etiquette. So, I'm a shameless toe-flipper of the kneelers. And she has mostly given up on the admonishments.
I don't know what-all, exactly, I had distracting me during 6F's graduation Mass, but, having flipped the kneeler up during one of the 'standing parts', I forgot to flip it back down when the next 'kneeling part' came around. So that, when I went to kneel, expecting the kneeler to be in place, I continued downward with some degree of force, catching myself on the pew in front of me, with the bottom of my rib cage. Which hurt likehell crazy, and I ended up with some bruised ribs for my trouble. And the next day, when I got out of bed, I discovered that I'd pulled a muscle in my side, to boot. Which doesn't really affect much, other than getting out of bed, or rolling over. It's also allergy season for me, which means I sneeze a lot more often than I do other times of the year. Which, if you've ever had bruised ribs, becomes a much, um, 'ouchier' proposition than if you don't.
Not that any of this is really so terribly debilitating, or anything. But I do get a certain wry amusement from the fact that, twice in the past seven months, I've managed to mildly injure myself just from going to Mass. As Carla from Cheers once said (in one of the great bits of dialogue ever in a TV show), "Catholicism is not a religion for wusses."
Until it came to that portion of the Mass where the congregation kneels. It being the church basement, we had only the hard cement floor, covered with a thin layer of floor tiles, upon which to kneel. And this was a Latin High Mass (a very cool experience in and of itself), so the 'kneeling parts' were a fair bit longer than what I'm used to in my home parish, besides the fact that we were kneeling on concrete. So, when it was time to kneel, the 'locals' tossed their foam pads onto the floor, as a sort-of 'roll-your-own' kneeler, and saved themselves a half-hour's wear-and-tear on their kneecaps. For my part, when Mass was over, I hobbled down the aisle, and up the stairs, like a man much older than I already am.
-------------------------
The Catholic Mass, along with the Orthodox Liturgy, and a few other 'high church' liturgies, contains a series of shifting body positions, in the course of a normal worship service. Some clever types have referred to this as 'Catholic Calisthenics' - stand, kneel, sit, repeat as necessary. It can be a little bewildering the first time a visitor attends a Mass. My family is not Catholic (I converted when I was in college), and I once caused a minor scene at a cousin's Catholic wedding, by whispering 'Catholic Calisthenics' to my sister, during one of the stand-kneel-sit cycles, which caused her to burst out laughing. And generally speaking, there are no good times to burst out laughing during Mass. In case anyone was wondering.
-------------------------
So, last week, 6F graduated from 8th grade at Tiny Catholic School, and, as Catholics are wont to do, they celebrated the auspicious occasion with a Mass. The liturgy moved into the Eucharistic Prayers, which is where most of the kneeling happens.
Now, in 35 years of being Catholic, I've become fairly adept at flipping the kneeler down into position with my toe. Molly used to admonish me that that's a minor breach of Catholic etiquette, that the proper form is to sit, and put the kneeler down with one's hand, but I can always plead my convert status, that I was never properly taught the subtle fine points of Mass etiquette. So, I'm a shameless toe-flipper of the kneelers. And she has mostly given up on the admonishments.
I don't know what-all, exactly, I had distracting me during 6F's graduation Mass, but, having flipped the kneeler up during one of the 'standing parts', I forgot to flip it back down when the next 'kneeling part' came around. So that, when I went to kneel, expecting the kneeler to be in place, I continued downward with some degree of force, catching myself on the pew in front of me, with the bottom of my rib cage. Which hurt like
Not that any of this is really so terribly debilitating, or anything. But I do get a certain wry amusement from the fact that, twice in the past seven months, I've managed to mildly injure myself just from going to Mass. As Carla from Cheers once said (in one of the great bits of dialogue ever in a TV show), "Catholicism is not a religion for wusses."
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