View Single Post
Old 03-05-2006, 12:28 AM   #229
Wolfpack
Pro Rookie
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Raleigh, NC
Hi, my name is Wolfpack, and I'm a father.

(Hi, Wolfpack!)

Seeing as it's my first post in this thread, I'll try and make it an interesting one. To set the table, I have one daughter, Charlotte, who's now 27 1/2 months old and is going through that stage where you can practically hear the creases forming in her brain. It's an interesting and exciting time to say the least.

At any rate, we recently changed up our bedroom to have our bed on the floor instead of in a bedframe, anticipating the impending birth of our second child. We're co-sleepers as a family, so we did this so that the new baby wouldn't be in danger of falling very far if she did for whatever reason drop out of bed. We did some furniture shuffling in the room that ended up with a small end table next to the bed for a nightstand (before the furniture re-shuffle, it was actually hidden behind the door to the bedroom).

As I noted earlier, our daughter is figuring things out and generally moving into the rambunctious stage of her toddlerhood, able to run and jump, albeit not very well. Well, on Monday night, she was jumping around on the bed, and if you took note of the end table mentioned earlier, I'm certain you can see where this is heading. Did I mention the end table is square with rather sharp corners and edges? Perhaps now would be a good time to mention that, because...while hopping on the bed, she for whatever reason gets up momentum and goes shooting off the side of the bed and smashes her face into the edge of the end table. At the time, my wife and I were getting things ready for bed, so we were in the room when it happened. I pick her up off the floor and she is bleeding profusely from a nice gash right below her right eye. My wife and I debate for a couple of minutes whether we should take her to the ER and ultimately decide to do so, just to be on the safe side.

We get to the ER and are fortunate it's a light night, so we're brought in right away. Still, we do have to wait for a bit for the doctor to come. He examines the cut (grotesquely pulling it open briefly, I might add) and says that yeah, it needs stitches. Knowing that we have a pretty frightened and hurt two-year-old on our hands, he recommends confining her in a papoose (if you don't know, it's a smallish board with velcro wraps that helps immobilize small children) during the sewing-up and also a D-TAP shot for possible tetanus, which we accede to.

The stitching operation is, needless to say, a very traumatic experience for the family as Charlotte is forcibly confined and then has a cloth put over her face so the doctor can concentrate on the stitching area. To boot, a nurse is further physically restraining Charlotte's upper body since the papoose only restricts the limbs to any great degree. The doctor puts in six stitches, all the while Charlotte is screaming and crying and asking to go home and saying other things that naturally tear at a parent's soul because frankly there isn't anything Mom or Dad's going to be able to do to make it better in the short-term. Finally, the stitching is done and all are relieved. Charlotte is rewarded with a couple of popsicles, which seems to sooth her a bit, at least up until the D-TAP shot, which is brief, but still not pleasant. We're then discharged to go home with instructions to return in five or so days to have the stitches taken out.

All during the week, Mom tries to prepare Charlotte for the return visit by discussing with her what did happen and what will happen. Charlotte hears what Mommy's saying, but I don't think she ever quite got it intellectually. This is determined because we went back yesterday (it's now Sunday as I type) to have the stitches out. It's all fine up until we get to the hospital and what had been a fairly happy child during the morning has now become a huddled mass of fear, clinging to Mom and looking decidely unhappy as we stand in line to sign in. The peds ER is a bit more crowded this time, so we have to wait around for a bit, which is both a blessing and a curse as she calms enough to play with some toys and look at the fish tank and even take in a bit of a movie on another child's mini-DVD player that that child's parents brought with them, but this is all merely delaying the inevitable. When we are finally brought back, the fear returns immediately and she's totally unhappy (not hysterical, mind you, but definitely crying and whimpering and so forth). That last visit on Monday has really done a number on her mentally.

We sit in our room for a while and Charlotte is alternately asking to nurse, drink water, or eat something, all the while never settling down and continuing her miserable mood. We finally are seen and again we decide to strap her into the papoose, which naturally elicits some resistance. However, she isn't forced to be under a sheet this time and we count off the stitches as they come out, which seems to help her (she has enough of a grasp of numbers to I think understand how many were removed and how many more were left). She's not hysterical or crying, but she's not enjoying it. Finally, the last stitch is removed and they apply the steri-strips over the cut. Both my wife and I are deliriously happy the ordeal is over with and are thrilled with how well Charlotte coped during the removal process, telling her how brave she is and how proud we are of her for handling it so well.

"Charlotte brave. Charlotte boo-boo feel better. Charlotte go zoom-zoom in the car. Go home."

Ah, just melts the heart to hear that.
Wolfpack is offline   Reply With Quote