Big Red Toe...

Thursday night at about 2am Dotty woke up telling me her toe hurt and asked me to rub it. She had been up a lot during the night already and I was exhausted so I just rubbed her little foot for a few minutes until I thought she was back asleep.

I did not put much stock in Dotty telling me her foot hurt because she had also been talking a lot in her sleep and she had asked me for things like lamb food for Mary's lamb and she had told me that she was lost and she could not find her way...when I asked where she was trying to go she said to Cinderella's house.

I am a vivid dreamer who dreams a lot and I have also been told I talk in my sleep so I know what Dotty is going through with her dreams. Sometimes they can be so real it is hard to know what is really happening and what is not. Thus I thought the "hurt foot" was just a dream.

However, when she got out of bed Friday morning to get ready to go to school she told me that her foot still hurt. We were standing in the hallway outside the bathroom and I glanced down at her feet and was about to ask "which foot" when I saw it....the little toe next to her big toe on her left foot was very red and about twice the size as normal.

Being a good parent, I of course "panicked calmly"...meaning inside I was a mess but so as not to scare her I remained outwardly calm. I called Mom to come look at it and Mom panicked fairly calmly. We decided I needed to take Dotty to see her doctor just to make sure it was nothing serious.

Dr. Yap thought is was an ant bite or something similar to that and gave me some cream to apply with some other instructions. By this time it was 10am so I took Dotty to school (after going by to see Memaw for her approval of Dr. Yap's conclusion).

The minute Dotty got into her classroom she wiped off her shoe to show all her classmates her "big red toe". The teacher immediately asked me what the doctor had said and seemed relieved that it was not contagious but she did have Dotty put her shoe back on and told the kids to wash their hands.

Dotty never really complained too much about her toe and was in a good mood all day. In fact, while we were waiting for Dr. Yap to see her Dotty just looked at me and said "If Dr. Yap has a princess bandaid I bet my toe will feel lots better."

I went out and bought several boxes of princess bandaids since they seem to be the magic cure for whatever ails Dotty.