The Ugly Truth

I still feel stupid. And my typing accuracy is way down.

This is what your hand looks like...

...after you very nearly slice off the pad of your finger while cutting watermelon which is especially stupid considering you spent 3 1/2 years working in the fruit and veg prep area of BYU's food services department while you were in college in which position one of the very first lessons they taught you was how to safely peel and cut melons without hurting yourself and thereby avoiding spilling copious amounts of blood, getting five stitches and traumatizing your 5-year-old.

I feel very stupid...and ow.

What Is It About My Kids and Head Wounds?

Are they genetically predisposed to cracking their noggins against hard things and ending up with gory gashes in the middle of their foreheads? I'm thinking they must be because as of last night, three of my four children have the mark...the one that indicates a head injury and a trip to the instacare/E.R.

Daniel's head cracking experience was in my preblogging days. He was in first grade. He slipped on some black ice on the playground at school and whacked his head on the blacktop. The school called me and when I arrived I discovered that his skin had just popped right open. The wound looked almost round it was yawning so widely. So off to the urgent care we went and he ended up with a hand full of stitches. I don't remember how many, but he's got a scar. Since I wasn't blogging then, I was not as macabre about taking pictures of injured children so the most famous head shot we have is the one taken in primary a couple of weeks after the incident. It is the one they used all year on bookmarks, handouts, the bulletin board, etc. Don't you just dig the Spider-Man bandaid?

Daniel-Jan. 7, 2008

Matthew's Humpty Dumpty moment happened when he was 2 1/2. I was a dedicated blogger by then so the whole nerve wracking incident was well documented.

 Matthew-Oct. 16, 2009

So who is the third head wound recipient, you may ask? Take a guess. You have a 50% chance of being right. You might guess that Nathan has joined his brothers in the mushed head club...but you would be wrong.

Yup. My not quite but so so close to 2 year old is the winner, although I can't say this is a prize that one should aspire to earn. Last night Kevin and I were downstairs chatting when we heard a thump from upstairs. Immediately following that, Nathan starting shrieking, "Dad! Dad!" It was the sound of sheer panic which meant, of course, that I immediately began to go into panic mode. Kevin ran up the stairs with me close behind, scenarios of horror already running through my mind. We found Nathan and Malia on the floor in the kitchen, both crying pretty hysterically. Malia had a gash and a huge dent that looked suspiciously like the sharp edge of the counter on her forehead. Kev headed off to the instacare with Malia since I was in no shape to drive safely just then.

Just because I know I haven't mentioned it yet, Kevin started a new job two weeks ago which means we have had a change in insurance. The new insurance cards have not arrived yet so I got on the Internet, found the necessary info and texted it to Kev. At that point I was awfully glad that I had spent three hours earlier in the day making phone calls and making sure we has access to the website and the temporary cards.

Once that task was done, my attention turned to Nathan. He was a wreck. We have to remind him frequently that he is Malia's brother and not her parent so that might give you an idea of how much he dotes on her. He was absolutely devastated that he had hurt her, so that was when I started trying to figure out what had happened. It seems that Nathan had been helping Malia wash her hands. When he was getting her down off the stool (and then flying her around because it is fun) he tripped, on his shoelaces he thinks, and fell. However, he was so panicky about Malia that he didn't realize that he had a big goose egg on his forehead and his knee was swollen. In fact, he doesn't even remember hitting his head because he was so focused on Malia. It wasn't until ten or fifteen minutes after Kev had rushed out the door that Nathan realized his head hurt. So there was need of some reassurance that it had been an accident and that everything would be okay. And we applied some ice to his head since by then he realized he had quite a headache.

Kev kept me updated regularly and the outcome was that her brain didn't actually get mushed at all and her gash was shallow enough that they were able to just clean it and glue it closed. As per instructions we watched her closely for about four hours after the incident and all seemed just as it should be. She was actually pretty pleased because she got to stay up late and watch "Tangled."

This morning Malia woke up acting as if nothing had changed and all was well until she decided to pick at the dermabond on her head. She said, "Owie." I looked over and realized that she had picked half the glue off her head and it was bleeding again. After a couple of phone calls to our friendly neighborhood healthcare providers, I was headed back to the instacare so they could clean and reseal the wound. Luckily for us, everything looked good enough that they decided to just clip off the section of dermabond that she had picked off and put steri-strips on it. They used lots of adhesive and lots of steri-strips so hopefully she won't be able to pick those off as well.

Malia did great with all the medical care. She didn't cry or fight and they didn't have to strap her down or anything. And she clearly has no lingering negative affects other than the cut. I think I'm more traumatized by the whole thing than she is...

Staples Are Faster Than Stitches

It’s true.  With stitches they have to very carefully take each stitch, tie off the sutures, clip the threads, repeat, repeat, repeat.  With staples it’s just ka-chunk! Ka-chunk! Ka-chunk!  And you’re done.  With some medical grade staples of my very own right now, I can tell you that the sound of the stapler is one of the things about the surgery that I very clearly remember.  Add to that my layer of Dermabond (the medical grade super glue) and all the finish work was pretty darn speedy.  After falling off a couch in our next door neighbor’s garage and cracking his head open on the cement this afternoon, Matthew was pretty freaked out. But the repair work was all over much faster than the stitches two years ago.

He did not, however, like the whole irrigating and cleaning of the wound.  They used one of those big old syringes to shoot the water on his head and he told Kev that he didn’t like the “punchy water.”  After two weeks in the hospital, two doctor’s appointments this week and a trip to the instacare, I really could use a break from the health care industry.  Don’t get me wrong.  I really like our health care providers and they’ve taken good care of all of us lately, but I really could do without seeing them for a couple of days.

Two Out Of Three

This afternoon I picked Daniel and Nathan up at school so we could get Nathan to his appointment with the eye doctor. He was very excited about this appointment because he knew that if everything was going well, he would only have to wear his patch for one hour each day. We had plenty of time and arrived about ten minutes before his appointment. We walked into the building and Matthew took off running to see the fountain in the foyer because, let's face it, who doesn't love a fountain? This particular fountain is surrounded by a glass wall that is about waist high and is anchored into the floor with (for lack of a more appropriate word) a little metal curb with a rounded edge. Unfortunately, Matthew tripped and the force of his running and his full body weight was transferred to his head smacking into the metal curb. I was right behind him and picked him up just as he started crying. Now I can do blood and I can do cuts, all with a minimal amount of panicking. But when I rolled him over he hadn't started to bleed yet and what I saw was a gash and a dent in his head and bone. A dent in his head and bone! And I freaked out a little bit. To my credit, I don't know a mom alive that wouldn't have a bit of a panic attack upon seeing her child's skull minus its nice flesh covering. Luckily for me, all the folks at the doctor's office kept their cool, slapped some gauze and medical tape on Matthew, and sent us to the emergency room. As we headed back to the car, Nathan started crying but I don't know if it was because Matthew was hurt, I was freaking out, or because he didn't get to have his appointment with the eye doctor. Poor kid.

When we arrived, me carrying a bleeding toddler, I was told that the other boys weren't allowed in because of flu precautions. I assumed they meant into the examining and treatment rooms and told them my husband was on the way. Half an hour later, Kev arrived just in time for them to take Matthew and I into the back. Poor Matthew was pretty much freaking out. He was bleeding, hurt, scared and sans blankie. Even still, he managed to charm everyone into giving him stickers, crayons, more stickers, crackers, etc. He was a real trooper. Later on, Kev came back and told me that as soon as Matthew was taken back, he and the boys were kicked out . . . as in outside. Apparently, when I was told that the older boys weren't allowed in, they meant anywhere in the building. The only reason they let them in when I arrived was because I was the only adult with them. So I know the swine flu is super contagious and all that, but seriously! Have a bit of compassion for the families of the injured! And none of us are even sick! Anyway, back to the story. So Kev took the big boys home while Matthew got stitched up. The doctor called the dent "dimpling" and told us you usually see that with an injury that is associated with great force. Ummm, yeah. Twenty-eight pounds of toddler running at the speed of light. That's force for you. Anyway, he said as Matthew grows it should become less noticeable. It will be interesting to see just how noticeable it is when he heals up. Ten stitches later (two underneath and eight on the top), he was good and ready to get out of there and nearly flew out the door.

This evening Kev commented that he was surprised that there isn't more of a welt on Matthew's head. My opinion? I think the effects of the swelling are canceled out by the dent in his head.

So yep. That's two out of three boys that have had stitches on their foreheads. At least Daniel's weren't right between his eyes. And hopefully Nathan won't feel left out and have an undeniable to need to join the club anytime soon.