Hunches, little voices, intuition, weird feelings, dreams - they are all the same thing. I believe some things, and some people we are tuned into better than others. I am certain that when we ignore these things, trouble and pain inevitably follow.

Luckily, our pediatrician believes in hunches too.

For more than a month, my daughter Zoe has complained of ankle pain. She had no fever, no swelling, good mobility, so we waited to see if it went away.  It didn't. After weeks and weeks of watching her not run as fast as she can, hearing her say "It still hurts, Momma," I called our pediatrician and we got her in for an x-ray. Turns out Zoe has something I have never heard of: an osteochondral defect of her talus bone.

When we got the call after the radiologists read the x-ray, I clenched the cordless phone, listening intently to the doctor as my anatomy class from college - the class from which I thought I retained nothing - came streaming back into my needing information mind.

You know, necessity, mother(s) invention, that thing. Some things wait dormant in your head until you need them.

It comes down to this; Zoe has a growth problem where her leg bone meets her foot bone, causing chronic pain. And it can be fixed.  It's not sinister. It's weird and unexpected and but she's going to be okay, thank heavens.

And the worst case scenario - which the doctor was savvy enough to give me immediately - is surgery, no weight bearing on her ankle for six weeks. Hmmm, inconvenient, but tolerable. Already she has been pulled from recess, P.E., and t-ball, but swimming will be therapeutic. Her six-year-old face was sad but her form gracious as she was a spectator of her own t-ball game Tuesday night. She rooted on her team and visibly wanted to be squatting, baseball ready at third base, but she's in the pool every chance she gets.  

If you can follow a hunch, you can certainly find a silver lining. 

Good thing this happens at a time when the sunlight will fill our days, school is almost out, and the only thing on the agenda is the pool and beach (well, maybe the beach).

There are more times than I realize when I rely on signs or hunches to set me at ease about what I don't know for sure.  This, like Zoe's condition, may be congenital or due to past injury. I will never know.

But I do know there is fact to be found in unconventional wisdom. I know there is truth hiding in patterns, charts and gut feelings.

I'm paying very close attention.