Our Family's First ER Visit

It finally happened. Frankly, I'm surprised we made it as long as we did without having to take my little wild ones to the ER. Unfortunately, Sunday night was the night.

Graham had one of his typical little accidents... lost his balance, bumped his head. I didn't actually see it. Cole and Graham and I were all in the hallway upstairs and they were doing their "super speedy" nightly race up and down the hall before winding down for bed. There was an empty pampers box in the hallway, and Graham kept climbing into it between races and then tottering over. The last thing I saw was him pushing his Pampers box into his bedroom. About thirty seconds later I heard a wail and found him on the floor with his feet in the pampers box and his head up against his changing table.

I picked him up and loved on him, but he didn't stop screaming, which is really uncharacteristic since usually he's so tough. So I tried laying him down in bed with some blankies and he STILL didn't stop. By this time Dan had made his way upstairs to see what all the raucous was. When he picked up Graham and held him, I saw the back of his head for the first time and noticed a spot in his hair that looked wet.

I did what any trained ER physician would do... I totally freaked out. "Oh my God!! Is that BLOOD!!!" Let me tell you, it is an entirely different ballgame when it's your baby who's bleeding. I was definitely not the doctor who can take care of mangled trauma patients. I was just a frightened mom, and I couldn't even approach his head to inspect the injury without feeling overwhelmingly nauseated. I was so paralyzed by my fear of how bad it could be that Dan had to step up and take the first look.

Fortunately, it was just a simple linear laceration, about 2 cm long. It was gaping open so much that there was no way that sucker was going to heal on it's own. So we threw some sneakers on him and a coat over his PJ's and I took him into my ER for some staples (yes, that is the standard of care for scalp lacs).

I called ahead to tell them I was on my way and even though the ER was SLAM busy with people waiting for hours on end, Graham and I waltzed in and were whisked to a room that they had reserved for us. Aaahhh, one of the few perks of my job. We were in and out in about an hour.

At first he thought his ER visit was great. He was making friends and running around like a little wild man. At one point we were playing peek-a-boo through the exam room curtain and he ran full-force into the curtain thinking he was going to run into me on the other side; Instead he slammed head-on and full-speed into the metal stretcher with his forehead. That made another big hematoma (goose-egg) smack dab in the middle of his forehead, and it was the beginning of the end of his good times in the ER.

Then came the lidocaine shot (right in the cut) to numb it up. I pinned him against me in a head lock, and he squirmed and screamed and struggled and squealed. He fought so much that for the actual laceration repair, he had to be pinned face down on his stomach. I never thought sweet little Graham had it in him to be so bad. I had to lay on his torso and control his arms and legs, and the paramedic had use two hands to control his head... just so my colleague could put the staples in. It was very stressful for all parties involved. I was all sweaty and tired from the exertion, and Graham was bright red in the face, furious and covered with tears. This is the "after" shot:




















4 staples total.


















The good news is the cut is healing well, and Graham has forgotten the staples are even there. He only seemed to notice the morning after when I put him on his back on the changing table. I could see him rolling his head around like he felt something weird on the back of it, but now he doesn't even seem to care. And his hair is even long enough to hide the row of staples, so all is well.

Maybe he'll have a little "tough-guy" scar. We'll see!