late night ER visit

We had a doozy of an evening/night last night.

The time was 6:30 (ish). Rodney had a bad headache so he was resting in bed. The boys and I were playing and had about 30 minutes to kill until bathtime. We played with a new racetrack for a while before the boys started getting crazy and running around the house. It happened in a flash, but Isaac ran across the room and flopped over his small chair, which just happened to be next to the window. I heard that awful loud noise that you hear when an accident happens, and Isaac started screaming. As soon as he stood up I could see blood pouring from the bridge of his nose, right between his eyes. I immediately yelled for Rodney and together we traded off putting pressure on Isaac's busted nose and dealing with Levi. As soon as I saw the blood and the wound from which it was pouring, my gut told me he needed stitches. We were able to stop the bleeding quicker than I anticipated, and I started second guessing the stitches.

We reached out to a neighbor who is a nurse, a church friend who is an NP, a friend who is a pediatric resident, and a friend who works in the children's emergency department. They all looked at a picture and said it was hard to tell, but he could need stitches. The children's ED nurse sent the pic to a doctor who said it did look like he needed stitches. By this point quite a bit of time had passed and we had decided that he was ok. We put some cream on it and an awkwardly-placed bandaid and were putting him to bed when the last text came in from the doctor. It got me all stirred up again, but we still decided to wait and call our pediatrician in the morning.

By this point Isaac was wired. He took a 20-30 minute nap on me earlier in the evening immediately after the trauma and adrenaline wore off, so he was feeling great now. We put him to bed, but he kept coming out and telling us things that he was thinking about. At one point I noticed the wound was bleeding again, and immediately knew we needed to see a doctor that night.

We opted to drive an hour to a children's hospital rather than go to an ER in town. Earlier in the evening we had called one ER and asked about the wait time and they couldn't tell us other than to say there were "a lot of people" there. The other hospital in town was listed at a 112 minute wait time on their website. Those wait times plus the major outbreak of flu in our area, plus no waiting (according to the website) at the children's hospital an hour away was a no-brainer.

I sent Rodney and Isaac out the door at 9:38 pm and finally sat down to eat dinner (a bowl of cereal) around 10:00. I was a nervous wreck. At 11:18 Rodney sent me a text that said they were definitely going to stitch it up. At 11:56 he said they were still waiting. I was still a nervous wreck, but I had the easy job of sitting on the couch under a blanket watching Parenthood while he knew he would have to hold down our screaming son soon.

numbing cream

I finally heard from Rodney at 12:15 that they were all done and coming home. Apparently it took 7 people to hold him down for the numbing shots but he wasn't as bad during the actual stitching. Whew. There is a reason I sent Rodney with him instead of going myself. Rodney reported that he was amazing during the whole process and was so brave and charmed all of the nurses. He came home with a bag full of goodies from the treasure chest. 

all done!

They got home around 1:40 and Isaac woke up a little getting him out of the car but went straight back to sleep when we laid him in bed. He "slept in" til 7:15 this morning. Ha! This morning he has been saying he doesn't want his friends to see his boo boo, and asked me to clean it off and put cream on it after breakfast. We go back in 5 days to remove the stitches, and he just happens to have a dentist appointment that same day. I see some more treats in his future.

happy boy the morning after

I have to note that the most astounding part of the evening was how awesome Levi was when things were crazy in the beginning. At first he cried when Isaac did (like he always does) and then got fussy when daddy couldn't hold him (dealing with Isaac), but then in the most amazing way, he became the easiest toddler ever. He walked around by himself, as happy as he could be, looking at books, playing by himself, just the total opposite of normal Levi. He went to bed after about an hour, but he was a breeze until then. Hallelujah!