The school health aide called to say that the blond twin wanted to know if I could bring her some pain killers. It turned out the blond twin hurt her neck, but the school health aide didn't have much information about how it happened.
I drove up to give her some ibuprofen. We have long known that the school cannot give any medications without a doctor's prescription. Even over-the-counter medicines required a doctor's note or else the school was not able to dispense anything.
Today I arrived to find her crying, with a ice pack on her neck. The health aide told me the blond twin hurt herself in gym class. Through her tears, the blond twin told me that she was playing tag in gym class when she felt pain in her neck. Right after that she wasn't able to turn her head.
She came home, took some medicine and panicked for a while. She worried that she would never be able to move her neck again. She asked if she needed surgery. She wondered if she would be able to go horseback riding again. The blond twin rambled all these things through her tears.
The ibuprofen kicked in just in time for her to sleep for a while. I massaged her neck, with plenty of direction of course. The blond twin certainly wasn't going to let me massage her neck without making sure I was doing it properly. She was injured, but she was still trying to be in control.
By the time I went to get the brunette twin from school the blond twin had been sleeping for more than an hour. The blond twin was so happy to see her twin that she seemed to have forgotten about her sore neck. It didn't take long before she moved the wrong way and the pain came back.
We kept her full of ibuprofen until she went to bed. She slept with her dog at her feet and her favorite critter in her arms. As I watched her sleep, I kept thinking, "She hurt herself playing tag?"