My oldest daughter has always been a bit of a drama queen. When she was 4 years old, she stubbed her toe on the sidewalk while walking to the beach. She refused to get off of the couch for three whole days, and even demanded that I carry her to the bathroom when she had to go.

One day my she was roller blading in the dining room with her cousin and landed funny when she lost her balance. She complained that her arm hurt. Naturally, I examined the area, but didn’t see anything wrong. I gave my standard answer of “put some ice on it,” thinking it wasn’t really a big deal. The complaining continued for the next few days, but I was use to that because she would complain for days even if she just had a paper-cut.

After two weeks of whining about her arm, I decided to take her to the doctor’s. My thought was that the doctor would tell her everything was fine so that she would stop complaining about it. Boy was I wrong. She actually had an injury. There wasn’t anything that could be done about it, as it was the kind that heals on its own, but I sure felt bad. The doctor just told her that there was to be no more roller blading in the dining room.

Fast-forward a year and it happened again. My daughter began complaining that her knee hurt. This time she hadn’t had any accidents that would have led to an injury so I chalked it up to growing pains. She had been growing a lot lately, and I know I had them when I was her age. The complaining didn’t stop, however, so after two weeks of mentioning it on an hourly basis I made a doctor’s appointment.

Guess what? She was actually hurt again. She pulled her hamstring muscle and another muscle I can’t pronounce. The area was actually swollen a bit. She got a CAT Scan and was ordered to take Ibuprofen twice per day for two weeks, along with using heat throughout the day.

I suppose that even though she is a drama queen, I will have to take her more seriously from now on.