Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Do I Look Like A Little Girl???

(This post was not meant to offend little girls, in fact they are some of my favorite people.)

The other day I went to the doctor to among other things have them take a wart of my foot. When we got to that point of the procedure, he told me that the new laser treatment was better on your foot on the 2nd & 3rd day, but that it was worse on the day they did the treatment.

While he removed some of the skin in the area with a razor blade, I remembered that I had a basketball game that evening. So I asked the doctor how bad it was going to hurt that evening because I had said basketball game. He told me that it might hurt quite a bit and that we could wait until my next visit to take care of the wart.

Well that was just insulting. In my mind I thought to myself, do I look like a little girl? I was tempted to tell him to go ahead and shoot the wart & then just for fun shoot that laser somewhere else on my foot just for giggles. I mean seriously, do I look like a little girl?

And if the doctor thought that the laser was painful, then man he better hope to not have half the stuff I've had, because this was nothing. And thinking about that experience and having my wife laugh at the story repeatedly (is that a good thing or a bad thing???) had made me think about things that have made me "tough".

Kidney stones, concussions, a broken thumb & broken nose all seem to jump to the top of the list. Surfing lessons, climbing mountains & white water rafting also make the list. Growing up I did a lot of things that looking back on them would be considered really dangerous. And truth be told I wasn't even the adventurous one in the family, not by a long shot.

But I think that all those things made me a better person. Some were hard or painful. Some took more determination than I thought that I had. But they made me a better person and I hope that I can overlook the danger and let my kids enjoy some of life's more challenging adventures, even if they fall and scrap their knees along the way.

I mean, I don't want them to look like a little girl, well except if they are in fact little girls.