In all official polls taken within the past 10 centuries, it's been noted that the males of our species continue to believe, against scientific evidence to the contrary, that they do not need to visit a licensed medical professional even if they have nearly severed a limb. If by chance the limb is anywhere in the vicinity of where it has originally resided, the male will pooh-pooh efforts to pack it in ice and take it and him to the nearest hospital.
"It's only a flesh wound!"
The first known instance of this occurred when caveman Oog lost a digit due to the use of undue force from his club wielding companions congratulating him on bringing down the mastodon for dinner. When he got back to the cave, his woman grunted and pointed to the blood still dripping from where his finger used to be. Oog grunted in return and waved his stump around, which meant, "Woman, I am fine! I still have nine left!"
My son, being male, is afflicted with this unfortunate inability to recognize imminent death. He got it from his father. I say that lest anyone think he's a momma's boy. Nope. I'm fairly certain that once the determination was made that my ovum should become a male, all genetic evidence of my contribution was removed from his DNA.
This explains his behavior the other evening when he came into my bedroom, removed his shoe and told me I should "check this out."
Generally the "check this out" request comes from him when he is sporting some ghastly wound from his skin coming into sudden contact with cement during his skateboarding antics.
This wasn't one of those times.
He removed his right shoe and sock on my bed and then pointed to his big toe. His big toe was unusually large and had turned a color not normally seen in big toes. Then he squeezed the toe, and vile-looking liquid shot out, landing on my quilt.
me: "Hey! That's my quilt!"
"I know, sorry, but isn't that cool, Mom?"
me: "You have got to be kidding. Cool? It looks inflamed and infected! Doesn't it hurt?"
"Yeah, kinda. What's this stuff coming out of it?"
You'd think that after living through 14 years on this planet, having suffered more than his fair share of infections from physical acts of stupidity, he'd know what pus is.
Since he'd waited so long to inform me that there was a problem with his foot, he needed surgery to take care of the massive infection. I hoped the doctor would be able to help my son realize that when he's got a problem with his body, he should come to me before the limb turned black and fell off.
So I asked the doctor if he would speak to him about it, and he said that he would. I should have known there would be a problem with that due to the fact that the doctor himself was (and still is, I'm sure) male.
"So how cool is it that your toe is all purple, huh? Does it hurt?"
"Yeah, a little," says my son as he is picking at his infected toe.
"Well, if it sometime starts hurting really bad, you should probably tell your mom as soon as it starts to bug you, OK? I mean, it might be nothing, but it could be something. But really, it's a cool color!"
I give up.
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