The longest afternoon ever

Today, around 1:15 CST, I heard some loud voices, followed by a thud. No, I wasn’t taping the beginning of a “Law & Order” episode. I was listening to my four-year-old shove his little brother into the corner of the play table because Noah didn’t want Caden putting more stickers on his sheet of paper.

The crime scene. The culprit.

Caden immediately started crying, and Noah immediately started apologizing. I ran in there, looked at Caden, and saw blood. Not gushing, but a nice, clean cut, which was starting to swell already. I ran Caden into the kitchen to get some pressure on it, and Noah started to cry. Yes, that’s right, Noah. He was freaking out, realizing how much he had hurt Caden this time, and I was trying not to shout at him. Caden continued to cry, which made me really sure that this was pretty serious. Eventually, I got the bleeding stopped, or at least slowed.

Now the decision had to be made-urgent care, doctor’s office, watch it ourselves? Complicating matters was the fact that I was scheduled with patients starting at 2:00. I called the doctor’s office, spoke to her nurse, who wasn’t much help. By now, my mom was here, and she said she’d be willing to take Caden to urgent care so I could go to work. Forget it, I’m his mom. I called work, rescheduled my first patient, and off we went to urgent care.

We got called back into triage fairly quickly, around 2:15, then ushered back to a room. The nurse popped her head in a few minutes later to let us know there were 9 people ahead of us. Great. I called my mom, who was in the waiting room with Noah, gave her the good news (sarcasm), then took a call from my boss. I explained the situation, and she said, “Yeah, you’re not going to make it in today.” She worked on rescheduling all of my patients for tomorrow. I had my mom come back to give me the “bag of tricks”-books, coloring stuff, snacks, and the all-important Hot Wheels-and then take Noah back to her house. It was going to be a long afternoon.

We played with a bead thing that was in the room, we looked at books, we played with cars, we colored. A nurse stopped in about a half hour later to supposedly clean the wound, but we never saw her again. And then I noticed the TV. DUH! We started watching Bob the Builder at 3:25. Shortly thereafter, the first nurse came back in to say we were being moved. Then the PA came in. I think she was 12. Maybe 13. She had barely crossed the threshold of the room when she told me Caden’s cut needed stitches. How did she know that before even seeing him. Did triage tell her that? No Dermabond? Whatever, all I could think about was what was in my near future with my exactly-23-month-old.

Warning: Graphic details ahead. May not be suitable for my more squeemish readers.

She ushered us back to a procedure room, where it seems they do the casting of broken bones. We sat there for a bit, watching TV (thank God for PBS), when another nurse came in, and started to explain the “papoose” they were about to put Caden in. It was a board with wide straps with Velcro. They sat Caden on it, put a pillowcase behind him to keep his arms pinned secure, then strapped him in, from his ankles to his neck. He freaked. He was just about to calm down, when the pre-teen started sticking a needle directly into his cut to deliver the lidocaine. He totally freaked. I tried not to look. Then the blood came. Thank goodness I’m not one of those that can’t handle the sight of blood. Then again, maybe it was because it was my son, and I had to be the brave one. Whatever, I held it together. Barely.

Then we waited, again. Finally, Doogie Howser got ready for the stitches. He was pretty calm by now, watching “Arthur.” Then he saw her tools, watched as she reached precariously close to his eye to grab the end of the thread to tie off the stitches, and started sobbing and resisting again. So much for the attempt to make the scarring as minimal as possible! (Hey, didn’t Luke Perry have some cool scar thing in one of his eyebrows?) Nine stitches, a bit of blood, and two and a half hours later, and she was done. A couple of stickers, and a popsicle (for me), and Caden was all smiles! Like nothing had ever happened. That’s Caden.

Tonight, you’d never know anything had happened, except for the swollen, blue stitched scar above his right eye. He’s running around, laughing, being his crazy self. We’ll see how it heals. One month until 2-year-old pictures. No problem!