Trauma drama...

Oy...to quote my Mother in Law...

"Now it begins. I pray for extra strong innards for you"

Peyton got his first "laceration", as the Docs called it, last night. It was 10 minutes to bed time and I was upstairs faithfully posting a blog when I hear cries of holy terror and pain coming from my sweet boy. "What happened?" I call out, waiting to hear back that all is fine (after all, he had been a fussy, fussy boy all day and was over reacting to EVERYTHING). No answer. "What happened?!" nothing. A third time I ask and a third time, no reply. Suddenly I hear Ian running up the stairs and my first glimpse of my son is of blood streaming around his mouth, all over his shirt as he continues to scream. "WHAT HAPPENED???!!!" I yell this time, pleading for an answer. He's not sure where the blood is coming from but manages to get out that Peyton pulled on a stocking and the decorative heavy metal stocking holder fell off the mantel and struck him in the face. We get a wet washcloth so we can wipe away the blood and hopefully soothe the "OWIE". It is approximately a 1/4 inch cut just above his upper lip and it is gaping open and bleeding what seems to be a lot! We wonder what to do for about 10 seconds and I decide to call the nurse hot line and inquire. Is it big enough for stitches? Can we butterfly it ourselves? HELP! The nurse recommends taking him to Urgent care because it sounds out of our realm and she is worried about scarring and infection. So we load our now calm and ready to play toddler into the car and take our 30 minute trip downtown to see what awaits us. My last experience with Urgent care left me a little disgruntled (a 3 hour wait and NO magazines in the waiting room!) We had the foresight this time to bring his Jammie's, a bottle and a diaper change as well as a book for Ian and I. Upon arriving, as I took Peyton out of the car he reached out to the rain and exclaimed quite jubilantly "WA WA!" Yeah, HIS trauma moment was over. The sign in the waiting room warned of a 2-3 hour wait. Oh great, I thought. It's already a half hour past his bedtime and now we have to keep him going for three hours in this germ infested place with an open wound on his face??? Well, Group Health redeemed itself to me last night... we ended up getting out of there in exactly 1 hour and they deemed his laceration shallow enough to glue shut instead of stitching, "thank you God!". That was far less traumatic and easier to care for. We got him home, administered a dose of baby Tylenol and hoped for the best. He slept until 8:45 this morning (can I get an "amen!") and is doing quite well today. He looks 100% better and is loving to "uggle" as he calls it. The stockings will have to be hung another way but hey, for the sake of my baby's face, I can live with it.

This morning, glued shut...