I was just getting ready for school on the morning of November 19, 2009. I walked in front of the couch sectional and cried out in pain because something hard and sharp stabbed with all its might into my foot.
“Momma! Daddy!” I’d cried. I know that I cried to often—I get hurt easily, and I don’t get my way, so I cry. But this was something I had no control over; I screamed with my natural instinct.
“What now?” my Dad said, because he probably thought it was just another one of meltdowns. My mom came rushing into the room, then, and my sister soon followed, brushing her teeth as some toothpaste dripped from her mouth onto the floor. Gross.
“It hurts! There’s something in my foot!” I lifted up my leg and put it on my lap to see that there was a small…toothpick sticking straight out of my left foot.
“Let’s try and pull it out.” Daddy said, and he attempted to tug it out.
I screamed. “Ow! Stop it!”
Momma looked at him. “We’ll have to take you to the emergency room,” my mom sighed. Daddy picked my up like I was a baby and carried me out to the car. My mom was close behind.
“Emy. Get your sister’s copy of Twilight.”
Once we were all in the car, my parents debated over which hospital to take me to, while I thought, Why does it matter which E.R. you take me to, as long as I get to one?
They finally settled on some hospital that I’d never heard of, and I just complained about how much my foot hurt during the whole ride there.
At the hospital, we had to wait in the small and stuffy waiting room for around half-an-hour. Someone finally came to see me, and we went into a small room. Only the nurse, my mother, and I could fit inside the room. Daddy and Emy waited in the hallway.
The nurse asked Momma a bunch of questions, like when my birthday was, and when my mom said “November 17” the nurse chuckled. “So close to your birthday, huh?” she asked, then continued bombarding Momma with questions.
When the verbal questionnaire was over, the nurse snapped a bracelet on my right wrist, and told me to sit in a wheelchair. I did what I was told. She wheeled me to a small room with a bed, sink, curtain, window, counter, and some cabinets. My parents followed behind the nurse, and Daddy helped me into the bed. Emy gave Momma my book, and she gave it to me.
“The doctor will be with you shortly,” the nurse said before she left.
The doctor came in a few minutes later. He looked at my foot and muttered, “Yikes,”
He told me that he would have to give me a shot so I would feel it when he pulled it out. He counted to five and then gave me the shot. I screamed and screeched like I never had before.
He was right, I didn’t feel it when he pulled it out. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt afterward.
He wrapped my left foot in some sort of gauze and gave me a pair of crutches. He asked my mom how tall I was, and she said about 5”2. He adjusted it to the right height, and gave Momma a doctor’s note for the next two days. I didn’t go to school, but I want to see New Moon in theatres on November 20. A word of advice: never see a movie while you have crutches. It hurts your armpits, your working foot, your arms, and it really makes you sweat. After I saw New Moon that night, I made a promise to myself that I would never touch a toothpick again.
Of course, I didn’t follow through on that promise for very long.