Emergency Room Visit Round 2

We interrupt our regularly scheduled catch up posts to bring you this update:

This past Monday, (two days ago) Pierscen decided that splitting his head open on Thanksgiving a short eight months ago wasn't quite good enough and that it was time to even the score...

He was standing on a bucket in the laundry room turning on and off a light. (Insert a huge portion of guilt on my part here because I knew that's what he was doing. I did tell him to be careful, but as he has done this many times and the bucket is pretty sturdy, I didn't think too much of it...Sigh.)

A short while later I heard a huge crash and an even bigger scream. The bucket had gone out from under him. I ran to see the damage and pulled up short. There was blood everywhere. I mean - everywhere. His face looked like Niagara Falls. And the only thing that went through my head was a not nice word. I was not afraid of the blood. I was just instantly heart sick. We just did this! 

I scooped him up and ran to the kitchen, grabbed a paper towel, got it wet and started mopping him up and trying to stop the bleeding. Of course Ryan had left a 1/2 hour earlier to go to a meeting taking our only car. I called him and yelled over the screaming that I needed him home immediately. I hung up, got the bleeding under control and gave P his passy which had an instant calming effect. Then I took a moment to think about it and realized that it really didn't matter if Ryan came straight home. The ER was inevitable and it is only a few blocks away. I called him back and told him I would put P in the stroller and walk to the ER. I jogged most of the way. The bleeding was mostly controlled, though I didn't have gauze and coban on it like we did when we were in Utah. First of all, I don't know where the stuff is. Secondly, I was on my own and he would barely let me touch it. 

The ER, as expected, was really busy.  I've never been there before and I still don't know if what we saw was normal, but there was no one at the desk when I first arrived. There was only one nurse that came and went, trying to do the minimal check in, take patients back, and get people triaged. It made no sense. Where was the registrar? I understand that they probably go down to one registrar at some point, but at 6 pm? Anyway, it was a good half hour before we were officially registered. Ryan arrived shortly thereafter. We didn't get triaged until 6:45ish. The one thing I was disappointed with during the triage was that they didn't bother to cover or coban his head either. It was just a gaping wound. (This was an even bigger issue later...)

 We were finally assigned a room, but it wasn't until after 8 that things got going. Pierscen was actually very good natured during most of this. He was simply bored and tired. And toward the end, probably hungry. 

When the doc came in, he started off by saying that we had two options for stitching him up. The nurse had already told us that most likely they would just burrito wrap him and do a local anesthetic. That sounded like a nightmare to me considering it was near his eye and even wrapping him up wouldn't keep his head still. So when the doc said we had two options, I hoped that meant we could knock him out like last time. So before he could even give me the options, I began chanting, 

"Ketamine! Ketamine!"

He started laughing and said, "Well that answers that! We'll get that started." When he came back in the room he asked, "So how did you know about Ketamine? That's not something most patients know much about." Haha.

It was at that point that we had to explain that this was not our first rodeo and that unforunately we seriously JUST did this! :( 

Anyway, they finally came in and got things started. At the first shot, Pierscen of course started screaming. I was sitting on the bed holding him on my lap. We had removed his shirt so that they could put the stickers on his chest. Good thing we did because as soon as he started screaming, his blood pressure spiked and remember how they never covered his wound? Well it started gushing again, pouring down his face. His chest and my hand were soaked. Like, it looked like a horror movie. Thank goodness I was already covered in blood. After a second dose in the other leg, the meds kicked in and they were able to wipe us both down.

I wish I would have snagged a picture when the doc started stitching it just because you could see how deep it really was. It actually went all the way to the bone. :( He ended up with six stitches this time - one internal, and five external. Not as many as last time, but this one was much deeper and went through his eyebrow. So sad!

After that it was just a long, long wait for the Ketamine to wear off. Last time he was pretty funny coming out of it. This time was mostly just heartbreaking. Lots and lots and lots of crying. I blame the blood pressure cuff going off for a lot of the screaming. He did mutter a few things as he was coming out of it like, "Whoa... I'm dizzy," and "How are you? I'm good..." 

He did pull some cute faces that had me giggling, but I didn't capture many of them. 

We finally made it home around 10 pm. He was so exhausted, but we weren't convinced the meds were totally out of his system. So we set up the pack and play in our room and after he fell asleep in my arms, we put him down. He slept solid until about 5:30 am. I woke up and saw him standing in the corner of the pack and play looking out at the hall. I am sure he was more than just a little confused. He finally just laid back down until he heard Ryan roll over. Then he popped up and said, "Hey mommy!"

I picked him up and carried him across the hall explaining it was still night time and it was okay to go back to sleep. I put him in his crib and he passed out for another two hours.

He is doing much better now. He hates having his bandaid changed, but he is his normal, fearless little self. It scares me to death! Didn't he learn anything?! Haha. I have been much more of a helicopter parent in the last few days, trying to make sure he isn't going to injure himself again. I am very thankful that we were able to get it taken care of and let's just hope we are done for a while. It's okay to be done with stitches by his eyebrows, right? (I can't actually bring myself to say be done with stitches period because I know that won't happen, unfortunately.)

I am thankful that he is okay and that he didn't injure his actual eye. He definitely has guardian angels around him!

May Recap

Getting back to "real life" after vacation sometimes takes a while. In this case, it also meant that Pierscen's Mother's Day gift for Oma would be late. We went to Pottery By You and he picked out some magnets to paint for her. I painted the fish for kicks and giggles and was undecided on whether we would send that one or not, but Pierscen insisted on it. I wish I would have let him paint it instead! That's okay. He had a lot of fun and I definitely think we will do it again in the future.

We caught an orange belted bumble bee in my bedroom one afternoon and Pierscen loved studying it. He is definitely a bug boy.

We let the bumblebee go in the backyard. P watched it for a while before it flew away. We have since seen several in our locust trees out front. Apparently they really like the flowers.

We attended an Eagle Scout project out at Fort Caspar. We have never been out there. As part of the playground, they have this fun stage coach. I thought it was pretty neat.

They also have a few memorials in the area. One was dedicated to a group of men Brigham Young called to stay behind and help ferry following groups of pioneers across the river. As I was reading it, I recognized one of the names...

Third name down is Appleton Harmon, Carpenter-Mechanic. I went to Ryan and asked him if that was the same Appleton in his family. Sure enough, it was! Uncle Appleton (great, great, or so). How cool is that?! I thought it was pretty neat.

Mother's Day was good. The boys brought me breakfast in bed. Unfortunately the only picture I got that day was this one:

Pierscen smacked his eye on the pew in front of us. I thought it split open but thankfully it was just a bad abrasion. Poor kid.

The big adventure of the month was our first camp out in the backyard. We have never taken Pierscen camping as we have been afraid of getting him to sleep. The only option (we figured) was to take his pack and play, which typically he hates. That, and our regular pop up tent it too small for it. However, Ryan's parents gave us a hand me down spring bar tent (lots of room), so we decided to try it. 

Rather than bring out his pack and play, we put his mattress inside. It went about as well as we figured it would - totally chaos. Haha.

He jumped and jumped and jumped and pounced and bounced and jumped some more. Ryan fell asleep fairly quickly (how does he do that?!) and I stayed up trying to convince P it was okay to lay down. We put the mattress between us and let him go like a wind up toy until he finally collapsed.

Throughout the night I had to keep rotating him to keep him on the mattress or cover him back up with blankets. I don't think I slept at all, but Pierscen had a blast. We have a camping trip with Ryan's family planned toward the end of summer, and so we viewed this as our first trial run. Now we know what to expect. It will be a late night and he will only sleep after exhausting all other options, but he loves it.

Memorial Day was a productive one with Ryan priming the kitchen wall. We still didn't have a color picked out, but white primer is better than red with a million patches on it. :) Pierscen was a great helper.

A great work out helper that is! His grip is pretty impressive, right?!

 That afternoon we took a nice walk down by the river. P refused to ride in his stroller and just ran the whole way. Dodger, who only likes to get wet up to his elbows at the very most, was so hot and exhausted he actually laid down in the water. This never ever happens, so yes, it was picture worthy.

As I have mentioned before, P loves trampolines. As luck would have it, the grandma of one of my piano students said she had a mini trampoline she was going to give away and asked if P wanted it. Um... YES! He loves that thing! Thank you!

The last big thing of the month was the Touch A Truck Event. They had dozens of ambulances, fire trucks, bull dozers, cranes, tractors, trailers, cop cars, you name it - all parked together to allow kids to climb inside and explore. Pierscen had a blast!

 Above: Firetruck. Below: Cop car. P loved it when I shut the door. He would hold onto the bars and just grin.

 We were excited to see the Green Acres Farm people out there. They have the corn maze and petting zoo we like to go to in the fall. They are the ones that have the giant bunnies too. I love those rabbits!

The truck above is just an old fashioned truck for State Farm Insurance, but they have a bunch of fun noises programed into it when you press the radio buttons. It blares a train horn, random jingles and the State Farm song. P loves pressing the buttons, but it got really annoying really fast, so I had to drag him out.

I definitely think that is something we will be attending again. There were lots of little kids there, but I think it was a boy's dream come true. 

To end the month, and this post, here is a little video of a typical morning at our house. P wakes up and we bring him to bed with us where he asks to watch, "Burn Burn" - meaning Burn by Ellie Goulding. He may, or may not be obsessed with the song. ;)