A Little Friday Night Excitement

Friday night we went over to the Mason's for a belated Cinco De Mayo celebration. Amy cooked sweet pork tacos, which were delicious. After dinner, we headed outside so the kids could take whacks at a pinata. The kids were having fun playing on the swingset and trampoline while we were getting the pinata ready. All of a sudden I heard Nate crying, and I looked over to see that he had fallen off the ladder to the trampoline. It's a little two step stool, so he hadn't fallen far, but it's metal so I was worried that maybe he'd hit his head. As I got to him, I noticed blood dripping down onto his shirt. He was crying, and there was blood in his mouth, so I thought he'd bit his tongue. I scooped him up and Amy and I rushed him into the house. She got me a cloth, and I tried to see where the blood was coming from. There was a little blood in his mouth, but not enough to worry about. Then I saw it--blood was pouring from the bottom of his chin. Scott had been upstairs trying to talk Aaron into coming outside for the pinata. I tried to stay calm as I told Amy, "There's a lot of blood. I need you to get Scott." She ran to get Scott, and when he got to the kitchen, I took the cloth off and showed him the cut. He said, "That's deep, he's going to need stitches. Let's go." I quickly asked Amy if she'd keep the other kids, and Scott and I rushed out the door with Nate.

Scott drove, while I held Nate on my lap and applied pressure to his chin. Luckily, Eagle has a couple of choices when it comes to emergencies. There is St. Al's with a small emergency room that is just 2 1/2 miles away. We started to head there, but Scott couldn't bring himself to pay emergency room fees if we didn't need to. As he drove, he googled on his blackberry to see how late the St. Luke's urgent care was open further up the road. As we got to the parking lot of St. Al's, the information came up on his phone and he said, "St. Luke's is open till 10, should we go there?". It was only another 2 miles away, so we kept driving to St. Luke's. When we got there, we were the only ones there, so we got right in. And the doctor that was working, was an ER doctor, so we were in great hands. He came in and took a look at Nate and determined they would be able to do dermabond to hold the wound together (much easier than stitches). He said they would put some lidocaine on it to numb it (and it would need to stay on for about 20 minutes), then they would do the dermabond and then we'd be on our way. The nurse that we had was wonderful--she gave Nate an otter pop to pass the time while the lidocaine was on. It was just a gel that they spread on, but it works better with a little pressure, so she placed a cotton ball on with the lidacaine, then wrapped his head to keep the cotton ball on. And then we had to just wait.

When it came time to do the dermabond, we had to wrap him up in a sheet to keep him from squirming. He really didn't appreciate that, but before we knew it, he was all done. All in all, he was very brave and did amazingly well. And the great thing was, that because it was an urgent care instead of an emergency room, it was only a $20 co-pay and nothing more (making it very worth the extra 2 mile drive). The whole way home, he talked about his night-night (blanket) and rock-a-bye baby. So, that's what he got. Lots of snuggling with mom in the rocking chair after we got home. Here's the after pictures. The dermabond has a purple color to it, but you can see the red cut through it.