Annual Winter Emergency Visit

We had high hopes! But alas, it was not to be.

Today we made our annual winter season trip to the emergency room.
Those tongs up in picture one...the culprit. 

Why do they always end up wearing a new white shirt when they bleed? Who is this Murphy and how can I get my hands on him? Change the law Murphy. Change the law!

The traumatized appendage.

The not-so traumatized child.

Nice hospital bracelet buddy!

So not impressed having to show off his war wound.

The story: It was lunch time. I was getting Joel ready for nap when I heard Micah crying. I knew he was playing with the tongs and figured he got his finger stuck (yes, it happened before). This time, his index finger was stuck in a different place. Not in the hinge like I thought, but between those two pieces of metal. I pulled his finger out and the blood started to POUR. I grabbed a tissue and applied pressure. When it was clear that the blood wasn't slowing, I took a peek at it. Yep....this was gonna need stitches. He had ripped the pad of his finger pretty much off. Gross!

I called the doctor's office to check whether it was better to bring him in to them or to the ER (hey! I didn't know! And I would rather go to the doctor's office than the ER). The doctor's office offered to take a peek at it. I wrapped up Micah's finger in a rag and wrapped scotch tape around it to try and keep him from eating it. That lasted till we got in the van. I reapplied his bandage and off we went. The doctor took one peek at it and exclaimed, "Yikes! That's gross." Not exactly the most confidence inspiring statement. Off to the ER we went.

I called Gran Gran to come and help wrangle Joel. After my experience in the doctors office, I knew I would need a second pair of hands. (Let's just say, their sterilizing microwave thing ain't sterilized anymore and I'm really sorry about the liquid nitrogen)

 FOUR HOURS later.....we finally get outta that place. We spent two hours waiting for the triage nurse to take a peek at it. Another hour waiting to be called to the back where we would see the doctor and another 45 minutes before the doctor actually came to look at it. The doctor gave me two options.
#1. Put Micah under a general anesthetic. We would have to wait 4-6 hours to do this since I had fed Micah while we were waiting. OR
#2. A local anesthetic. Swaddle Micah in a blanket, put a needle in his finger, and listen to him scream while he got stitches IF he would lie still enough to do that.
I'll take option two thanks! Needless to say, Micah did great. He didn't like being on his back or being swaddled. But as soon as they had stitched him up and let him out of the cocoon, he stopped crying. What a trouper!

He got two stitches in his finger to hold the big flap of skin down. Then they put glue over all of that to hold the rest of it down. Then the nurses were trying to decide how to bandage him. I offered my "expert" opinion from our experience with Joel when he was 15 days old in the hospital with an infected finger. My idea won out!

So, for the next few days we'll have to keep his finger dry and bandaged. Then in a week, we'll go to our doctor and get the stitches removed. That boy is amazing. You could barely even tell that he hurt himself (no tears, except when it happened and with the doc). Now we have to start antibiotics again to prevent infection (fingers are prone to infection!). Yuck!

Oh the life of a mother and her boys! So, they may not be born in a hospital, but they sure like visiting them?!?! Boys! That's a BAD habit to have!