5 hours and 3 stitches later...

Well it's happened once again. Another child of ours has needed stitches. Let's rewind back 2 years ago. It was April of 2006. Jake is approaching his second birthday. Our little boy is not and was not a climber but on this day (the day after my birthday) he decided to climb his bedroom dresser while I was out of the room. This resulted in the dresser falling top of him and he received a huge cut in his upper lip. It needed 7 stitches and a long ER visit. OUCH!

Yesterday during our lunch Casey was being a goofball and playing around with the sippy cups and my water cup in the middle of the kitchen table. When I asked her to sit back down she slipped while going back and took a face plant dive onto our tile floor. I run to her hoping it was just a bump on the head and worse case sceanario she bit her tongue. Well not either of those. It was a cut/gash at the bottom of her chin. It was bleeding tremendously and hurt really bad. Jake was my big helper and retrieved a wet paper towel, an ice pack and Casey's pacifier for me (I was holding her and didn't want to track blood all over the place). After carefully looking at the cut I realized it probably needed stitches but wasn't sure if it could have been glued up with Dermabond. I made an appt with our Pediatrician (they could see her in 2 hours). Casey took a long nap before we headed out.

We arrived at 3:10PM. We sat at the Dr.'s office for about 40 minutes until Dr. Zoy came in (our Pediatrican was all booked so we saw one of the other doctors in the office). Dr. Zoy says: Yep, she'll need stitches it's too deep to glue it you need to go down to the Emergency Room. Our dr's office is attached to the hospital. At 4:00 we walk downstairs and entered a crowded ER. We sat in the Triage waiting area for 50 mins. After being seen in Triage we were told to go sit in the ER Waiting Room for another hour. At 6:00 we were taken back to the Minor Care treatment area. The ER doctor takes a look and says she needs 2-3 stitches. Of course everything moves like molasses in the ER so it wasn't until 7:00 that she started the stitches.

Casey was a very brave little girl. They wrapped her up in a velcro blanket to keep her arms and legs secure. Before they did that I reminded Casey about the times when Daddy pretends that Casey is a baby. Daddy gets a big blanket and swaddles Casey like a burrito. She was all smiles when the Nurse swaddled and I kept telling her she's a cute little burrito. Next they injected the numbing medicine to the wond area. She screamed for that (I don't blame her it hurts) But after a minute she was numb and didn't feel anything. She cried through all of it because she was scared and didn't like what we going on. But overall she handled it very well for being 2 1/2 years old. Big brother Jake was very worried and concerned about his sister. He insisted I lift him up so he could watch what was happening. At first I didn't think it would be a good idea but I decided it would be okay. He did fine and just asked questions about what the doctor was doing. When they were all done the nurse brought back 2 popsicles for the kids to enjoy. We were discharged at 8:00PM. It was a long day. Casey is doing excellent. I let her watch her favorite movie this morning (The Little Mermaid). We are all being careful not to bump or touch the cut area because it's still very tender an sore. We'll go back to the pediatrician in 5 days to have the stitches removed.

If your wondering where Daddy was. He was at home cleaning and cooking. We had dinner plans at our house with our friends Michele and Travis at 6pm. Unfortunately the kids and I missed dinner with them but once we got home we could spend time with them. It was an unexpected crazy day.

On a lighter note, while I was at the hospital for 5 hours I thought a lot about our friends Christi, Bruce and Griffin. They were at a hospital too in Kentucky welcoming their second child into their family. Christina Lucia (Lucy for short) was 8 lbs 11 oz. She's healthy and doing great. Christi is doing well recovering from her C-Section. Griffin and Jake are best buds and it's neat that they both have little sisters to take care of. We are wishing the Gast Family all the best with their new addition. We'll be visiting them in July and look forward to meeting little Lucy and seeing the rest of them.