they happen. It sucks... but they happen and you just have to do wha you can to prevent them and deal with them as they come.
Yesterday- my 20 mo. old son had an accident.
I am currently prepping bedrooms to be painted. Hence... everything must come off the walls. The boys had a big shelf in their room and I took it down and kept the metal brackets on it because we were goign to just hang it in the office. I set the shelf against the wall in the office and left the room to pick up screws and whatnot.
I then hear this blood curtling scream.
I run... and I saw Jayce sitting on the floor in the office and then I saw the blood. EVERYWHERE. I panicked. I grabbed him, saw it was his eye, and rushed to the bathroom. I grabbed as much tissue as I could to wipe away what I could to see the damage. (all the meanwhile, I'm freakin' out)... once i saw the cut, I knew he had to go to the ER. He had landed on the edge of one of the metal brackets right underneath his eye. and we're talking 1 inch long and probably half in. deep...and then there was blood on his upper lid as well. and because of the blood, that's what made me think his eye had been hurt just as badly.I yelled to my 8 yr old to bring me the phone and proceeded to call the husband to come home immediately.
Luckily, the bleeding was slowing down, so I was able to lay Jayce on the floor and have Hailey hold the tissue while I changed and grabbed things to take to the hospital. I was i nmajor mamma bear mode and couldn't really think all that much. ALl I knew was that my baby was hurt and it didn't look good. I was scared out of my mind thinking his eye was going to be permantely damaged.
As soon as husband was home, I rushed Jayce to the car and took off. This is when I lost it. It all caught up to me and I couldn't get to the hospital fast enough. See... we have a hospital like 4 blocks from my house, but of course... it's the ONE hospita in the entire county that our insurance won't accept... so I have to drive to get to one. Luckily... there is a SMALL hospital about 10 miles from my house, so I went to that one.
We showed up and Jayce had stopped bleeding, but was trying to fall asleep. They proceeded to put some local anesthetic on a cotton ball and tape it tothe wound to numb it up. we got in a room and it had to it on his face for 30 minutes before they could look at it.
we all know what "hospital time" is... so 30 minutes.. really means 2 hours. yah.
so once they finally get around to coming and seeing him, they're thinking "Oh... simple stitches, just the local anesthesia from a cotton ball will do the job". um... nope. sorry.
They take the tape off and the Dr. then says "oh! well... that's a little more complicated than I thought. I need to go make a phone call"
right....
so we wait... again.
thn he shows back up and says "Given that I didn't take a GOOD look at the cut before, I don't feel comfortable stitching his wound. Because of how deep, the angle, size, and location... I think a Plastic surgeon needs to be involved. And if we can get him here, we'll need to sedate him as well."
ok... he seriously just told me PLASITC SURGEON and SEDATION!!!!! I freaked.
He takes a few pictures and sends them off to the plastic surgeon who agreed to come and do the fix, but he couldn't be there for another hour. well... again... in hospital terms.. that means... 2 hours. lol
soooooo...2 hours later, they prep the room, sedate my son using shots in the thighs and he's out. It was a conscience sedation, so he wasawake and breathing on his own, just completely out of it. They had to have a respiratory guy in there to monitor his breathing just in case. then there were 3 nurses, 2 interns, the MD, and the plastic surgeon all hovering over my son. I was able to stay in the room, but about 10 minutes after watching him stitch my sons face, I about lost it. I hadn't eaten or anything since breakfast and it was now croaching upon 3 pm. i got really light headed and had to sit. the nurse noticed my face and I must have looked horrid, because she rushed to my side and sat me down. she then got me a drink and some cookies and I had to sit for a minute trying to regain my stomach enough to be there for my son.
quite embarrassing.. yes. but whatevs..... lol
3 shots later, he finally finished up teh stitching. he had a few in his upper eyelid and TONS under his eye. the cut was so deep that they had to stitch the inside tissue first before stitching the skin.
20 stitches later........
Jayce is fine, and we now just have to wait for him to come out of the sedation. Luckily, because the plastic surgeon did the "repair" and because of his age, we should't have to worry about scarring too much. and after test upon test, they determined that nothing had happened to his eye directly, his vision would be fine.
it took him about 1 1/2 hours to come out of sedation enough to talk a little and start reaching for things, but was still so limp. felt like I had a 22 pound newborn who couldn't contol anything. It was quite funny and he was so cute. All he could say was "all done". the staff just thought he was the cutest thing ever (which undoubtedly agree lol) and around 4:30 we were able to finally go home.
we got home and I had to rush to the store to get his antibiotics, and because of the sedation meds... he STILL wasnt able to walk by the time I got home an hour later. he took his first step without falling over around 6:30..a whole 3.5 hours later. lol
poor kid-went through a lot yesterday and we were both exhausted. He has a follow up apt. with the plastic surgeon on Monday- don't think he'll get the stitches out yet, but follow up none the less.
He just looks so sad. he feels so much better and acts like himself, but I'm being overprotective and won't let him do ANYTHING. he doesn't like it much. lol
anyway- I'm missing for a while bcause I must take care of the babe...that.. and I'm now going through my house to fix potential eye-poker-outers for future's sake. lol
Here's a picture of him today. The steri-strips on him are gross, because when he cries, here's still a little blood in his tears and I'm not allowed to even remotely get his face wet until late tonight. but you can see how sad he looks. And I'll save you the gross-ness of the "before" pics... they are truly nasty, but there is a huge difference between when he first got cut to this picture here. He's still so cute right? lol
so yes... I feel guilty... as any mother would. But I know accidents happen and how greatful I am knowing that it isn't worse than what it very easily could have been. He was truly protected yesterday.
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