Dramatic Act

Today Keagan was sent home with what the school nurse thought was a concussion. Before school, he was playing a game of football and fell backwards onto a slab of concrete. He was taken to the nurse for an ice pack, and clearly understanding he could milk this head injury thing for all it was worth, claimed he was feeling light headed. Then he mentioned he felt nauseous. A few minutes later he mentioned he fell into a fire hydrant when he lived in Georgia. Then we had what we call the head injury trifecta. And my phone began to ring.

When I mentioned to the school nurse that Keagan could be a little dramatic at times, she was adamant that we had a serious situation and that he needed to be seen by a doctor ASAP. Two hours later, after securing a sub, writing lesson plans for a sub, and making sure my afternoon meetings were covered, I finally made it to the school to pick him up.  A sad faced little boy met me in the office, I listened to the instructions of spending the next ten hours in a dark room with no TV or video games, and I signed him out. And my sad faced little boy proceeded to SKIP to the car and after securing his seat belt he said, "I can't believe this, Mom. I am going home with a football injury."

I knew then that the nurse had been duped. Tricked. Hoodwinked. Whatever you call it, I had been right after all. A very convincing act got him out of school for the day. We left the parking lot, and my Chatty Cathy started a monologue about the bladders of cats and how amazed he is with the bladder capacity of his pet cat.

Because I heard the nurse's warning to avoid bright lights, I drove to Target and took him shopping with me. I made him walk through the homegoods section and look at new bath mats. I made him follow me into the women's section while I searched for a black cardigan. I even made him walk through the lingerie aisles, and he was still just as chipper as could be. He was skipping school, after all.

On the way home my Chatty Cathy started monologue number two on the decline of Toby Keith's singing career. Then we got home and he spent an hour making pillow forts and persuading the cat to be his fortress protector.

 On our way back to the school to pick up Evan, monologue number three on the colors of fall leaves commenced.

The concussion was obviously slowing him down.

I put him to bed tonight, and he said, "Mom, you heard the nurse. A concussion can take days to go away. IF I am not feeling better tomorrow morning, then I think we need to take her advice and spend another twelve hours in a dark room." Recognizing my doubt, he added, "It's for safety reasons, Mom."

Oh, he's good. Real good. But not that good. He will back at school tomorrow, and I will go to bed thanking God he is a great actor and nothing serious came from his fall.