Dance the night away

It was a duty like any other, only it happened to be a youth dance competition... At first I thought it may have been the annual Oompa-Loompa reunion given the amount of orange skin and wigs.

After several hours of boredom a young boy (around 14) 'hopped in' complaining of an ankle injury after a stumble when leaving the stage. I had a quick look by lifting up his pant leg and then fled to the opposite side of the room calling on anything holy to protect me (of course, this didn't really happen...) as I noticed his ankle was around three times the size it should have been. After taking a few more obs I followed the nifty little RICE mnemonic for soft tissue injuries and was recommending the joys of a trip to the local hospital to get an X-ray to be on the safe side. This was not to be...

The mother of the boy refused to leave, saying the child still had one more round - the Grand Final to compete in. I looked at his ankle. It looked back at me, whimpering. I looked at the boy, who seemed determined to keep his mother happy despite the risk of further (major) damage to his already damaged ankle. As the boy was under 18, his guardian had right to deny treatment.

I hadn't removed his shoe, given it was holding in the swelling somewhat and the parent had already said they wanted him to be able to dance. If the shoe came off, the swelling would immediately spread down into the foot and any hope of getting a shoe on again (and thus his ability to compete) would be lost. I was so tempted to take that poor boys shoe off... But alas, I had not the right.

This places us in a tricky situation. I had fully informed the mother of the potential harm she was doing her son, but still she refused. After a bit more talking we came to an agreement (which I still hated) - she took her son from the First Aid room back to the event, covering his ankle with his pants (thankfully loose fitting). Nobody was allowed to know he had been there (not that we give out any details on our patients) and, if we pretended nothing was amiss she would 'allow' us stand side of stage if he collapses. How caring of her.

This is where the story gets strange (I know). The boy goes on to dance. The boy wins the championship. Nobody notices his ankle, three times the normal size, and he walks off stage as if nothing were wrong. That boy must have been in tremendous pain - and as he walked to his mother out of sight of the crowd you could see his limp and unshed tears.

He may have won this championship, but I shudder to think the damage he may have done to himself or - more to the point - the damage his mother had 'allowed' him to be exposed to. I hope he's still out there dancing (he was good), but I'm hoping more that he was allowed to heal before his next competition.

Some people just shouldn't be 'allowed' to have kids.