A month ago, I took Kirsten to the dermatologist due to an enormously hideous and painful wart on the bottom of her foot.  As I suspected, the doctor said it needed to be frozen off.  Translation, of course, is burned off.  It’s so cold, it burns.

“This might hurt, a large blister will form, and you’ll have to come back in a month – after the blister has healed  – and we’ll see if anything is left of the wart.”

With little ceremony, the doctor proceeded to freeze the wart.  Over and over and over.  Kirsten – one of the toughest kids I know – started shaking with pain but held it together.  She even held it together as we walked towards the check-out desk.  But as I was paying, she turned white as a sheet, doubled over, almost fainted, and barely made it to the car.  She was in severe pain for several days.  As a family, we watched the blister with horrified fascination for the next few weeks.

Playing basketball every day at school proved challenging.

Fast forward a month to her follow-up appointment.  We walked into the office and were greeted by a different assistant than the one we had previously seen.  She asked a few questions and looked at Kirsten’s foot  – the blister had healed but it was clear that the wart hadn’t completely disappeared.

In a deep Texas drawl and with all the concern of a mother hen, the assistant then said,  “He is very aggressive with the freezing.  That must have hurt like [pause as she searched for a word other than “hell”] cock-a-doodle-doo!”

Did I just hear that right?  By the expression on Kirsten’s face, it appeared that I did.  We restrained ourselves and didn’t laugh until after she exited the room.

The doctor recommended either (1) one more freezing or (2) a month’s worth of topical treatments.

I couldn’t believe my ears when Kirsten opted for the freezing.  She figured she’d rather get it over with in one shot and not have it drag out forever.

As expected, it was considerably painful.

In fact, it hurt like [pause] cock-a-doodle-doo!