A tale of two stitches

I'm finally getting around to actually writing down one of our most recent adventures with Pman. It's still a little painful. For me. Patrick is fine.

Let me start by saying P had already had a rough week. On Wednesday he met the brick around Oma and Opa's fireplace with his face and was left with a big scrape over his eye. On Saturday (while playing with mama) he smacked his face on the coffee table and got a big fat lip. He was just warming up...

It was a warm Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago. Tim and I had planned to go wine tasting in Amador with my uncle and aunt that were in town visiting along with my dad. My mom had eagerly volunteered to stay home with the kiddos (mom's not much of a drinker :).

We got to my parents new house early and we were hanging out while everyone was finishing getting ready. Patrick was running around like a crazy man as usual. Looking back, I feel terrible that I didn't respond quicker to the THUD I heard come from the living room. He falls and bangs himself up so often that if I jumped to respond to every bump I'd spend all day hovering. It wasn't until I heard Tim shout "Oh sh**" for everyone to hear that I knew there was trouble.

Sure enough, he brings P into the kitchen with blood spreading down his face and of course, the poor kid is screaming bloody murder. I take a lot of pride in the fact that neither Tim or I are panicky parents. I know my heart was pounding and Tim was talking pretty fast, but for the most part we held it together and talked about what we needed to do. (It seriously drives me bonkers when parents wig out and get hysterical. You're not helping the situation or your child.) It was pretty obvious from the amount of blood and the way the cut looked that a band aid wasn't going to cut it. Bye-bye wine tasting.

The next question is, where the heck do we go??? It's Sunday so his doctor's office is closed. Do we head to the ER, urgent care? I didn't know. Fortunately Jan Cronin is always the level headed medical professional and she was able to advise us that urgent care would be able to handle our situation. That seemed much less scary than going to the hospital. So we threw a band aid over the gaping slash on my 21 month old’s head and headed out the door. Patrick had calmed down but he didn't want anyone to touch his head or even hold the cold pack to it. I knew getting it checked out was going to be loads of fun...

In the waiting room you never would have guessed that this child has recently had a traumatic head injury. He was running all over place, checking out the fish tank and charming the other patients. I considered just taking him home without further traumatizing him. Chics dig scars right? I kid, I would never deny my child medical care just because it might be uncomfortable for either of us.

It was a different story once we got into the exam room. I'll spare you all the details but let me just tell you that my arms were sore the next day from restraining him. Talk about heart breaking... It was a long process of having the nurse look at his cut and clean it up. Then the dr determined that he did in fact need stitches (duh). Then there was the agonizing 10 minute wait for the topical cream to numb the area. Patrick was enjoying a popsicle but I knew what was coming next wasn't gonna be pretty.

It was bad. That's all there is to say about it. Anyone who has had to go through any medical procedure with a small child knows that there are few things worse than listening to your child scream in fear. He wasn't in pain. That seemed pretty clear. But imagine being restrained by the people who love you most,having your eyes covered by a sheet, bright light blasted into your face while a stranger starts poking around your owie. It makes me sick just to think about how he felt.  I surprised myself by actually watching some of the procedure. I'm usually pretty squimish when it comes to things like this.  It's different when it's your child that someone is going at with a needle and thread.  You want to supervise everything and medical procedures are no different.  Fortunately, it was over pretty quickly and we headed home for a much deserved nap and lots of treats for the rest of the day.  Tofutti's not gonna cut it after a day including stitches to the head. Bring on the Ben and Jerry's.

Accidents happen. I consider myself extremely blessed to have been given a healthy, energetic child. With that blessing comes the risk that his curiosity will induce many boo-boos for Patrick and many grey hairs mommy. While I don't wish for days like this one, I wouldn't trade my rambunctious little boy for anything!