Thursday, June 18, 2009

In Stitches

Well, he won't get his 5 year pin.

He discovered a way to get stitches just shy of his 5th birthday.

* Have cousins staying with you.
* Engage in rowdy play day and night.
* Manage to remember the rules about no running in the house. Especially in the upstairs hallway.
* Don't consider it a problem to engage in a game of "sleeping bag monster". In the upstairs hallway. With stairs and a low banister.
* Volunteer to be the "sleeping bag monster".
* Trip off a step as you walk down the hallway to scare the other kids.
* Fail to miss the corner of the banister with your chin on your way down.

What began as mild screaming, which I later figured out was simply muffled screaming as he made his way out of the sleeping bag, turned into full-blown hysteria from all involved. Cousins, grandmother, aunt, mommy, HIM....we all were in panic mode.

Blood can make you do that!

Of course, I was in the middle of nursing, so I had to do a quick hand off.

After assessing the damage, we at first thought we could manage it ourselves with super glue and butterfly closures. With a little more inspection, we decided this was truly an injury requiring stitches.

I had called the husband to hurry home and then we headed off to the ER.

With lots of screaming in the backseat.

Him, not me!

Although I know it still hurt, at this point it was more about his fear of being examined and receiving stitches.

The wait was not horrible and the assessment revealed the need for 4 stitches. The deadening shots were the worst for him and watching him get a fish hook through his skin was the worst for me.

I would have liked to see a little more cosmetic touch with the stitch applications. Maybe smaller fishhook with a few more stitches.

He was such a trooper! So very brave!

After it was all done, he informed us that "it didn't hurt a bit".

Of course, honey!

The stitches came out 6 days later. That hurt more than he would have liked it to. We are babying the wound area in hopes of minimal scar leftovers.

Anyone ever used that scar-minimizing stuff with good results?

Here he is with his cat whiskers as I liked to call them!




I hope we can go another 5 years without anymore trips to the ER!

Stacey

4 comments:

Cindy said...

Ouch!! I hear that Arnica works wonders for minimizing scars.

loni said...

Well it does eventually happen to most children, I think. And I also think that chins must ENJOY getting stitches, cause it seems they are a real hot spot.

I hope he is feeling better and back to bouncing off the walls (but not off the banister)!

Anonymous said...

Poor dude! (And poor mama!)

Oh, I am so dreading my first ER trip! And I know I'm bound for one soon! Now that they are BOTH running around we've started w/ th head on collisions. And there's not a single elevated surface that Bug will not try to get to. She's a doozy, that Bug!

I hope he doesn't scar!!

Kimmy said...

Awww. . . poor guy. It sounds like he was beyond brave.