On Wednesday, August 22, Jonah and Vera were home with one of our babysitters. Jocelyn and I were out together in the car we had met up during the day to take care of some errands. I was driving. My cell phone rang. Jocelyn grabbed it from my purse – it was the babysitter (who happens to also be studying to be a nurse) – she never calls me. I grabbed the phone.
Babysitter: (hysterical crying in the background) Heather I think you need to come home now.
Me: Tell me what is going on.
Babysitter: Everyone is going to be ok. Jonah hit his head very hard and it is a really big cut.
Me: (in the way too calm scary voice) Did he black out? Is it still bleeding?
Babysitter: He did not black out. He has been crying the whole time. I stopped the bleeding but it looks bad. He is going to need stitches. You should come home and take him to the ER.
Me: (as I quickly calculate how far we are from home and how to get there the fastest…) Should we call an ambulance and I will meet it at the house?
Babysitter: No. Just come and take him yourself.
We got home in about 10 minutes. I pulled the baby car seat out of the car and told Jocelyn to sit in the back with him. I was going to drive to Children’s Hospital. I went and got him. He had stopped crying. It looked HORRIBLE! It was a huge gash on his forehead about four inches long, sort of “open,” swelling as I looked at it, and looked very deep… OIY VEY!
I put him in the car and told Jocelyn she had to keep him awake. Which is actually not so easy – the kid falls asleep every time we get into the car on a good day when he hasn’t split his forehead open and been crying like crazy for over 30 minutes…
Mama worked hard. She was in face talking about toys and making him look into her eyes.
I was driving. It was the longest 5.3 miles I have ever driven in my life…
We drive up to the ER but end up at the wrong door. I get out with Jonah in my arms and bang on the back door. Jocelyn was going to park the car and meet us inside. But then she jumps out to help me get inside – and then the car starts rolling away… seriously she jumped out while the car was in drive…
Quickly, a security guard let me in the ambulance entrance and he ushered us into a room – Jocelyn got the car and went and parked it. The people at Children’s Hospital were awesome. Another shout out for Children’s Hospital!!! THANK YOU!!!
They checked us in while we were in one of the “rooms” and Jonah watched Scooby Doo. Someone came in right away and looked at the gash and bandaged it up. She said it would need stitches and someone would be in as soon as possible. We waited what seemed like forever - but I seriously have no idea how long we were there. Jonah slowly started to become Jonah again. He started looking all around. Opening up the cabinets. Climbing all over the furniture… jumping around.
How did he get this gash you ask? Well, he was running around downstairs – remember we don’t have much furniture and the kids love to run around downstairs. The kitchen has 2 doors so they make a loop into the living room. That’s what they were doing. He slipped on the area rug and flew forehead first into the 100 year old solid metal radiator…
Thinking about it makes me cringe and almost throw up.
So there we are in the ER and Jonah is totally getting into everything. He found a roll of tape and managed to tape everything up, the bed, the chairs, me… I let him go with that.
Then they bring in the “burrito” and lay it on the table. They come in and explain to me and Jocelyn in a way that Jonah can’t really understand what they are saying – that they are going to wrap his body and hold his head. They will give him a local shot of anesthesia and then stitch it up. I asked if I could hold his head. I just needed to be with him when this happened to him. I knew the “wrapping” was going to put him over the edge – the kid can’t sit still normally for more than 2 minutes… he was not going to be happy about all of this. I asked if I could hold his head. The woman who was going to do the stitches looked at me and said if you could do it, that would be great.
So then it happened. They wrapped him up. He got out of his mind hysterical. They gave him the numbing shot in his head. He was screaming, “mommy, please, please, help me, get me out, it is too tight…” I was holding his head and talking to him the whole time and staring into his eyes. And then completely exhausted, he just fell asleep. The room went quiet. The amazing woman doing his stitches said to me, “they don’t often cry themselves to sleep, but it actually means I can stitch him up perfectly now!” And she did. Two internal dissolvable layers of stitches and a top layer of stitches to be removed. She was teaching a resident how to do it as she stitched him up - which was very illuminating as she described everything she was doing and did it painstakingly slow – and quite perfect as far as I could tell. When they were finished, we put him in the stroller and brought him home… quite the day.
When Jonah got up he looked at his “scratch” as he likes to call and and I explained how it had stitches just like the ones in his shorts… he thought that was kinda cool. He also asked me if he had to get wrapped up again – he told me he didn’t want to do that again. As if I didn't already know how he felt about it.
The next day we went out and got him Bullseye from Toy Story for being brave. He deserved it…
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| Jonah planning some silliness in the ER... |
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| Jonah took this of me... |
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| back home with stitches |
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| he even manages a smile! |
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