The children in our family have never had to have stitches (besides surgery related stitches). I think that's a pretty impressive feat for 9 years and 5 kids. Although Dexter probably should have had them in his tongue back in 2008, he didn't so the streak continued.Well, our streak is over. Last Friday Echo got stitches. Scott was out of town for a couple of days for work and I was home with the kids by myself. It had been pretty much uneventful until I walked away from Echo and Malcolm to go the bathroom. They were standing by the Christmas tree while Echo pointed at the lights and named their colors. I wasn't gone thirty seconds when I heard the screaming. I skipped using the restroom and ran to the tree. Malcolm was holding a broken Christmas bulb (I hadn't even heard it break) and Echo was rubbing her disfigured finger on her shirt. There was blood EVERYWHERE!
It was quite a terrifying scene. I took the broken glass away from Malcolm and took him out of the room to prevent him from being injured as well, then took a screaming girl to the sink to assess the damage and stop the bleeding. It was bad. Corbin swept up the glass for me while I started calling people because I thought she'd need stitches. I couldn't get hold of anyone nearby, so I eventually got a hold of my sister, Max, in West Jordan. She came right over with her husband and daughter and went with me to the instacare, while they watched my other kids. The instacare had just closed, so we went back to my house and I sent them home since they had an early flight the next morning. I thought, maybe I'll take Echo back in the morning, so I put her and Ivy in the bathtub. In the bathtub Echo's finger started bleeding again. I decided to call the pediatrician's office just to see if they were open on Saturdays. It was nearly 7 pm so I was expecting to get a recording telling the hours, but someone actually answered. They were open until 8, and said that stitches needed to be done within 7 hours of the injury, so by morning it would be too late. So I got the kids out of the bath, threw everyone in the car, called Marde, who was home now, and dropped all the kids but Echo off with her with only about 5 minutes notice. I was so grateful she was home.
At the pediatricians office, the on-call doc wasn't very optimistic about Echo holding still for stitches and recommended that we go to the hospital and have her sedated. I asked him to try anyway and if it didn't work then we'd go to the hospital. When he left the room to finish up with another patient I said a quick prayer that she would hold still because I didn't want to go to the hospital too. Well, that prayer worked, because Echo held perfectly still the whole time (after the numbing stuff started to work). She was a champ and I was so glad that it was taken care of, not to mention that I was finally able to use the bathroom! Of course this had to happen at a time when Scott, who basically never leaves the house, was actually out of town. It was stressful!
Anyway, Echo got six stitches in her right middle finger, and besides being quite miserable for two days after, she is doing great. Here are some awesome pictures.
1 comments:
Nice! You are lucky! Ben got stitches when he was one. He's busted his bottom lip open three times but only got stitched once.
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