Joel wrecked his knee. He was playing tackle football, got plowed to the ground, and his right leg was forced straight out and over extended. Most likely he has torn ligaments in the back of his knee.

We had an appointment with the doctor at 6:30 PM. We left home at 5:30, picked up Joel and headed to the doctor's office. Joel and I were only with the doctor a few minutes. He basically told us that we needed to go to the emergency room and sort of laughed at us for not doing so in the first place. I told him that our insurance has changed and it costs much more for an emergency room visit. I asked if he could just give us an order for an x-ray and then he could treat Joel. He laughed again and said, "No!" You can bet your sweet bippies that we won't be going back to that guy ever.

We drove from the doctor's office to the hospital near our house. The place was packed with sick and dying folk. So we had to wait a little bit. But once taken into a room, the staff took care of Joel fairly quickly.

The worst part of tonight's ordeal was that Joel was experiencing considerable pain. Every bump in the car caused him to wince. Every jostle of the wheel chair going into the hospital made him moan. Getting him out of the wheel chair and onto the x-ray table was torturous to him.

To make matters even worse, we had a nurse named Enrique who had no patience whatsoever. He was grumpy and extremely hard to understand when he spoke. It sounded like he had a three-day-old piece of rubberized sausage shoved down under his bottom lip. I just about pummeled the guy when he impatiently and roughly pulled Joel up further in the bed when the poor kid was painfully doing his best to move. Lucky for Enrique that a very patient female nurse came in to assist Joel.

The doctor on duty was cool. He took his time with Joel and explained things clearly to us. He was thorough. He saw a mysterious line just below Joel's knee on the x-ray. So he sent Joel back to have his good knee x-rayed for comparison. That was a good call. There was no line on the good knee. That line turned out to be a small fracture.

Yes, Joel hurt himself pretty good this time! Tomorrow we need to have an MRI done on his knee. Then we have to see the specialist. Hopefully he won't need surgery.