T is 6 years and nearly 2 months old and has never needed a trip to the ER... until last night. That is an achievement practically unheard of for most boys! Of course, considering T's mild and subdued nature, it's not surprising that there were no prior ER visits. It's not like he's a throw-caution-to-the-wind kid who daily tries to challenge the laws of gravity and inertia.
As a matter of fact, T's visit last night had very little to do with throwing caution to the wind, although there was wind involved.
Adrian had been away most of this week, doing business in Detroit. I had warned the kids that Daddy wouldn't be home until bedtime, and that there would be no time to play with him (or with the games on his phone) last night. When Adrian surprised us by arriving home a wee earlier than expected, the kids were thrilled, and it wasn't long before T was engrossed with Star Wars Angry Birds on Adrian's phone.
I could barely peel T away from the game to put on his PJs — he continued to launch birds after each article of clothing was removed — and he did not heed my instructions to go brush his teeth. Several minutes later, I was sitting on the floor blow-drying Oo's hair, when T walked up and stood next to me, still tapping away on the phone. Over the noise of the hair dryer, I loudly reminded T to brush his teeth. Despite the volume of my voice and his proximity to me, he did not appear to have heard a word I said. To get his attention away from the game. I blasted him with a quick shot of air from the hair dryer. Startled, he jumped away from me, his foot tripping over the hair dryer's cord. He flew head first into the bottom edge of his bedroom door.
Big tears and blood ran down simultaneously. I felt like such a jerk.
He quickly calmed down, and walked to the bathroom with Adrian for a closer look at the damage. Pushing his bloody bangs aside, we saw an inch-long, deep gash in his hair line. The blood bubbled out for a moment or two, but was easily controlled by applying a little pressure. Still, we knew that the cut was too big to try to treat at home.
A few calls to the local urgent care centers revealed that they were all about to close up for the night. There was no choice but to take him to the ER and risk a long wait and exposure to the interesting individuals that populate ERs at night. Despite having just driven 3 hours from Detroit and not having had a bite to eat since lunch, Adrian put his shoes back on and took T to the hospital. I wanted to take T myself, but I was busy fighting back the urge to either puke or pass out. Normally, I'm much cooler in an emergency. I think that if Adrian were not home to help, and I had no choice but to take charge of the situation, I would've been able to keep my emotions from taking control of me.
After they drove off, I finished drying Oo's hair and did my very best to calm her down. She was soooo worried about her little brother, she was in tears. I tucked her in and we concentrated on sending happy, relaxing thoughts to T so that he wouldn't feel scared. Oo's relaxing thoughts were those of taking a nap by the ocean and listening to the sound of the waves. She fell asleep quickly, so I hurried downstairs to wait by my phone for text updates from Adrian.
They had to wait an hour in the waiting room. As per usual, there was an array of unusual characters and high amounts of drama. Adrian distracted T with, what else? Angry Birds. Our local hospital has a special pediatric ER area. So once T was called back to an exam room, he was completely removed from all the drama. There weren't any kid-friendly shows on the TV in the room, so Adrian found a hospital channel called Serenity, which played nothing but relaxing music and video clips of peaceful scenes from nature. T described it to me as "the beautiful show."
The pediatric ER here is staffed with a Child Communicator whose primary function is to explain everything to the young patients in kid-language. Before anything was done to T, and along each step of the way, this person spoke directly to T. She told him about the special medicine that was going to "make the boo-boo go to sleep" (numbing gel) and about how the doctor would fix the boo-boo with either "stringy band-aids" (stitches) or "clicky band-aids" (staples). Adrian said that T was completely at ease with this woman and not at all afraid when the doctor put three staples in his head.
Adrian said the worst part of the ER visit was the wait for the final paperwork. After the staples, the doc told T that he was all done. Unfortunately, Adrian still had to wait an hour for the administrative person to give him a sheet of paper to sign and one sheet of follow-up instructions.
They didn't get back home until after midnight. Despite being rather sleepy, T insisted on going to school today to show off the clicky band-aids to his classmates. This was a little out of character for him — wanting to draw attention to himself — but he seemed fine, so we sent him to school with a note saying that he should sit out of gym class. We also sent an email to his teacher asking her to call us if T got too tired or cranky during the day.
He made it through the whole day without a complaint. And when I asked him if he had shown his clicky band-aids to his friends, he looked at me like I was crazy and said, "No, I did not want to have to take them out." I'm not sure what he meant by this, but I didn't ask him to explain. The little guy had been through an ordeal, handled it bravely, and was in a good mood from from having enjoyed his day at school. I marvel at his resilience.
Here's a picture Adrian sent to me from the ER. T is holding his teddy bear (Oatmeal) and some gifts from the nurses (Oreos, Scooby Doo stickers, and a Spiderman puzzle). What a trooper!
