Well, we reached a milestone that we had managed to avoid for the first 7 years of parenthood... our first trip to the ER with one of our children. Elijah decided ( when mom turned around to get Christian) that the back seat of the double stroller was a good place to stand up and try a balancing act. Balancing did not work so well whenthe stroller tipped on end and left him with road rash on his upper lip and nose and a large gash on the inside of his lower lip. I knew immediately after cleaning him up that it would require stitches to his lower lip. So, we picked up Courtney from school (where we were trying to go when this all started) and headed off to the nearest ER. Luckily, Mark was able to get a sub for the 3-6 class he was supposed to teach and met us there shortly after we arrived. We must have timed it right because we did not have to wait at all to see triage and as soon as she saw it, she immediately took us back to a bed. One hour and 7 stitches later, we just had to wait for Elijah to wake up completely and then we were done! Fairly painless...Elijah was an angel, calm and cooperative and was back to his active self without missing a beat just a couple hours later. So, we've done it...braved the ER...hoped we'd never have to, but knew it was inevitable....here's hoping we're not back anytime soon!
3 comments:
I'm impressed how cooperative Elijah was. Micah was everything but cooperative. When it came time for the stitches, the nurse had to immobilize (using all of his strength) Micah's head, while I pinned down his legs.
All four of us (the nurse, the doctor, Micah and me) were thoroughly exhausted after the ordeal.
Definitely one of the more traumatic experiences that come with parenthood
we decided to go ahead an do concious sedation...so he was awake but too out of it to fight. The doctor actually would not even try to do the stitches without. Since it was on his lip, he would be able to see everything that was going on and I am sure would not have been cooperative for that part. But, we were still impressed with how he handled the rest of it while he was totally awake.... I was not sure about the sedation, but after the fact, i am gla we did it and he and i have not quite as bad a memory from the whole thing!
I love the picture! We did the sedation thing with Annika too. Her stitches were on her bottom lip. However, taking them out was quite a traumatic experience. It took a few months and Dr. visits for her to be ok with going to the doctor. Good times!
Post a Comment