Our First ER Visit

[on our way home from the ER - P has his bandaged finger and his new teddy bear]


I wish I could somehow guarantee that it would be our last ER visit. But I have twin boys. That are two. Did I mention they are boys?!


Talk about scary. It was scary. But it could be so much worse. And P is just fine.


But he did get his first big war wound owie.


Prior got his finger caught in a door by his brother. His ring finger on his right hand. It nearly cut the tip of his finger off (it was dangling). Noi did the right thing and called 911. I, thankfully, was very close to home and was there in just a few short minutes. Little Mason felt bad - as soon as he realized that his brother was hurt he ran to his bedroom and shut the door.


When I arrived home P was very calm. And then he saw his mama and started crying. We grabbed his blankie and crawled up into the ambulance. Again, I was so thankful that I was so close and got to ride along. The ambulance crew even gave Prior a little teddy bear for being so brave.


I have never done well with blood and injuries. I can think of multiple times when I have fainted. I was trying very hard to keep it together for Mr. P, despite the dangling finger - an image that I could not get out of my mind.


The boys are currently obsessed (and that is not an exaggeration) with trucks, tractors, rescue vehicles, etc. They can differentiate between anything from a back-hoe loader and an excavator to a fire truck and ambulance. And they can pick up the sound of an airplane that I would swear wouldn't be audible to the human ear. So riding in the ambulance was life changing for Prior. He remembers it vividly and continues to talk about it - weeks later. At one point during our short ambulance ride he saw another truck of some sort that was noteworthy. It was so interesting, in fact, that he yanked his injured hand out from under the bloody towel to point to the truck - dangling finger and all. (By this point the tip was blue). Thankfully Mr. Ambulance guy was there to wrangle it back under a towel so no one had to look at it!


We arrived at the ER and Dad met us there. We got to see a doctor right away. Prior was amazingly calm. He was so brave - I can't believe it. When the doctor arrived the only thing I wanted to know was whether or not they would be able to reattach the tip of the finger or if they would have to cut it off.


That's it. 


I didn't want to hear details. Nothing.


Ben did.


So he asked.


And the doctor went into details about what he would do to fix it.


And then Ben fainted.


Yes - fainted. He claims that he gave us all plenty of notice, but he gave the doctor and I a few short milliseconds to respond to his condition. Thankfully the doctor was right there to try to hold him up. 


We (a team of 6 nurses and doctors) were able to get him back on a stretcher and we soon made room in our ER room for two stretchers.


Those of you that know P&M well know that they often ask "____ doing???" [insert any person or object into the blank]


In this case, Prior wanted to know what Daddy was "doing". I told Prior that daddy just wanted to lie down like he was! He was ok with that.  See Prior....this is why mommy and daddy deal with crunching numbers on a daily basis and not crunched fingers!!


The doctor gave P a little medicine up his nose to help him relax. He then used needles to numb his finger so he wouldn't feel the stitching. I think he ended up putting 6-8 stitches around the finger to reattach it and then another few to stick the nail back on. The nail will fall off but hopefully it will grow back. The stitching process took about 20 minutes and while the doctor stitched a nurse held Prior down. Every few seconds Prior would announce (tearfully) "Prior STUCK...Prior STUCK!" He didn't like being held down. It was so sweet.


We were at the ER for a long time. I think he hurt his finger at 10:15 in the morning and we got home around 2:00. There was a lot of waiting in the ER. During the downtime Prior insisted that we ride home in the ambulance. I kept telling him that the ambulance was off helping other people that were hurt so we couldn't ride it home. That answer wasn't a good enough - he wasn't buying it.  Finally, I told him that it was too expensive to ride home in the ambulance. I looked at him and said - "honey, you don't have any money." He instantly turned around looked up at daddy and said "daddy has money".  We couldn't help but laugh. It's cute when he's 2. Not when he's 20!


The bandage was supposed to stay on for 2 weeks. I laughed at that. Unless the doctors used layers of duck tape to bandage his entire hand and arm, I knew there was no way it would stay on. I was right. It has come of a number of times. One of the times Prior said "Mason took it off". Not sure who I believe in this case.


Words can't describe how thankful I am that Prior is ok...and it's just his finger. It could be so unbelievably worse - and don't worry, I've thought about all of the other things that could have happened.  Is it strange that I would like to live in a foam house? Nevermind, back to the story. I told my mom that maybe I'm not cut out to be a mom myself - I'm not sure I can handle these bumps and bruises!



The next day we saw an orthopedic specialist. She said the finger had "vascularity" - meaning there was blood flowing to the tip. Good news. It amazes me how you can just throw a few stitches in the finger tip  and we're good to go. Thank goodness!