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!