Good thing chicks dig scars

I wonder if we are going to start getting some sort of value discount at the ER.

We just returned from our second emergency visit from our local emergency room. The last of course, being the time Moose cut his finger off in the door at daycare.

He has added a studly scar to his right eyebrow, coincidentally, one that mirrors one of his father’s scars.

Moose and I were playing in the backyard this afternoon. I had picked up some Mums to plant along my stone wall, and I was busy roughing up the soil, and picking out stray rocks. Moose was two feet away from me, running up and down the stone steps to watch me from above the stone wall, on the hill, and then back down to play with Scout. You know, just playing around.

I probably said to “slow down on the steps” about five times, in the time frame of about five minutes, before I walked over to the picnic table to place the Mums where I wanted to plant them. Moose thundered down the steps at lightning speed and sprawled across the concrete.

I heard the sharp intake of breath as he was starting to cry. I was literally standing over him, so I scooped him up, and started inside, barely glancing at his face. That was when I realized he must have hit the picnic table somehow when he fell.

As we walked inside he really started to wail, and I called to Cory to meet me upstairs. As I did so, I leaned back to see his face, and a gash that was about two and half inches long met my eyes. My stomach turned over a bit when I realized it was so deep, it was not even bleeding yet.

Moose put his hand over it, and was really crying now.

We got upstairs, Cory on our heels, and I made the decision to head to the kitchen instead of the bathroom, so  Moose couldn’t see the wound. We stopped in front of the sink and Cory took one look, and met my eyes.

“Yea, stitches.”

Surprisingly, we both kept our cool pretty well. He grabbed Moose, and headed out to the car. I comprehended a head wound enough to grab a freezer bag and fill it with ice, and grab a dish towel to hold on his head for the drive, for swelling and bleeding.

I had my keys in my hand, thinking Cory would sit in the back with him, however when I walked up to the car, after locking the house, Cory told me to sit in the back, that he would drive. I nodded and got in.

Quickly realizing that was a mistake a few minutes later when we were barreling down N Road towards the hospital, when my horrible motion sickness hit me. Moose was quietly crying at this point. He was not fighting me holding the ice on his head at all, his eyes on the road, I told him we were going to the doctor to “fix his head”.

We managed to park in the ER parking lot, and run inside and fill out paper work pretty quickly. I was shaking pretty bad at this point, starting to get worked up. They sent us to the waiting room where there were a few other people waiting as well.

We waited a total of about fifteen or twenty minutes I would say before they put us in a room. Moose had quieted at this point, and was very watchful of everything. He told me “his head was okay now”. I guess the ice helped, it hadn’t swollen at all at that point.

We got into a room, and a nurse put a cotton ball soaked in a numbing agent on the gash, and taped it on. She told us the doctor would be in shortly to talk to us. We quickly found Sponge Bob on TV, and Moose sat quietly in Cory’s lap while we waited for the numbing stuff and the doctor.

Finally the doctor popped in, looked at the gash, and told us they would be doing one more “dose” of the numbing stuff, and then we would do stitches. He said that Moose might sit calmly and let him do the stitches, or if he fought we would have to restrain him. Both Cory and I looked at each other and prayed that he sat quietly for the stitches.

A new nurse came in with the numbing stuff and put a new dose on his gash. We waited through another Sponge Bob episode.

Finally the doctor returned, with the nurse, and they started to work. They let Moose stay in Cory’s lap, with me sitting at their feet, holding Moose’s hand. The nurse was on his left, holding his head, and the doctor was on his right with the stitches.

The doctor started in on the inner level of stitches and got one in with minimal fuss. The second one was a whole new ball of wax. As soon as the needle touched Moose, he screamed and started crying. I stopped the doctor at this point and told him I thought it was hurting him. He agreed with Cory and I, headed off to get another nurse, and a shot for numbing.

They returned with the large shot, and a sheet. I held Moose as they laid out the sheet on the bed. They had me lay Moose on the sheet, then they rolled him up like a burrito, so he couldn’t move.

It. Was. Awful.

The screams he let out broke my heart into about a hundred pieces, and as I held his hot little screaming body in mine (they let me lie on the bed next to him) I felt helpless and horrible.

Cory and I had to hold him down while they gave him several shots inside the cut, to numb it, then hold him while he screamed and bellowed mostly in protest (because it was numb), while they finished up the stitches.

Five inside the gash, seven on the outside.

It took an eternity, and if I have several more grey hairs, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Finally they were done, and we unwrapped his sweaty little body into our waiting embraces, I have never felt so tired and relieved.

His hair was plastered to his head, and the nurse ran off to get him a popsicle. He immediately stopped crying while we took turns holding him. Quietly asking for a drink, and then to use the potty.

Fifteen minutes after we left the ER, we stopped at KFC for some chicken, and you would never know anything had been wrong. Except the huge sutured cut on his forehead.