Rough one, this week. Nothing too terrible, but a few distressing events went down. I'll relay them in reverse chronological order.
We spent Friday night in the emergency room at the children's hospital. Lil' S busted open the bridge of his nose and had to get it sutured. I'm not exactly sure how it happen. We were in the basement, and he was playing around in some empty cabinets. I turned my back for a minute, heard a small thud, turned back around, and he was on his hands and knees in the cabinet with blood pouring out from between his eyes. I grabbed a baby wipe and pressed it against the wound. He hated this of course, so he started throwing a fit, trashing this way and that, causing blood to get everywhere and making it difficult to stop the bleeding. I brought him upstairs; S saw what happened, and we basically pinned him down while S pressed her finger on the cut. I ran and got the first aid kit, but there wasn't really anything in the first aid kit we could use. The bleeding had stopped by the time I got back, and there was no band-aid that would fit properly. Plus, he was just going to pull off anything we put on. So we just gathered up our things, tossed him in his car seat, and headed to the ER.
(In retrospect, it's pretty funny that when we got to car, we realized that neither of us actually knew the way to the hospital. So we had one of those frantically-trying-to-pull-up-directions moments where both people are on their phone. "Should I search for children's hospital? Is it actually called 'children's hospital' or it just a hospital for children?", "Oh ... Michigan Street? I thought it was Minnesota.", "Is that Michigan SW or SE?", "I don't know why ... it's just not loading on my map app ... oh, wait, OK, yeah, I think we're good." I guess that's why it's good to have these things mapped out ahead of time. Even if you have smartphones.)
Apparently Lil' S punched himself out from all the trashing, because he actually fell asleep in the car. It made things much easier, as it meant S and I could exhale a bit. It was pretty intense for a few minutes. I knew the cut wasn't anything too severe, but that part of the body bleeds like crazy, and when you see blood flowing out of your kid's head like a spigot, it can get the adrenaline pumping.
As you can probably imagine, the ER was a zoo. If you know people who think Obamacare should be repealed, take them to the ER of D.C.'s Children's Hospital on a Friday night, and ask them if our current system should just carry on as is. I would guess by looking at the kids and overhearing conversations that the majority of the people in there didn't have a problem that was appropriate for the ER. But it's the only access to a doctor they have. (And, by the way, for all the people claiming Obamacare is "redistributionist", who do they think is paying for these ER visits, now?) I think Lil' S's wound put us as a middle priority case, but I'm not sure. What I do know is that we waited for four hours before the doctor saw us. It's funny how once you reach about hour two, you just start looking for people to blame, and you start thinking you're some sort of triage scheduler -- "We got here a half hour before those people! A laceration should take precedent over a earache! And why isn't that nursing dressing that kid's wound now, so when the other nurse is free he can see us. And are these doctors doing their own paperwork?! Don't they have orderlies for that?!"
Lil' S woke up about 20 minutes into our visit, so we had to entertain him for a long time. It was like a bad airport experience, but worse because we rushed out the house and didn't have anything toys or anything for him -- we weren't prepared. And we didn't even get cell service in the hospital (that's what we get for switching to the cheaper carrier, I guess), so we couldn't show him YouTube videos. Also, he had a big nasty gash on his head. It was rough.
Once they actually came in to fix him up, things went pretty smoothly. They wrapped him up in a papoose, which is a board with thick straps connected to it. It's like a cross between a straightjacket and a swaddle blanket. Lil' S apparently thought it to be more like the latter, because he didn't really mind it. He did however mind very much the anesthetic-filled needle being poked into his cut. (S had to leave the room, at this point.) He also didn't like having his wound cleansed with pressurized water. The student* who was doing it "assured" me that he wasn't in any pain; it was just that, because water was getting in his eyes, he was experiencing the sensation of being drowned, like water boarding. That's the actual comparison he used -- "water boarding". Well, okay then. It's nice to know my son is merely being tortured, not actually hurt. But once all that prep work was done, he fell asleep again (it was about midnight, after all), and he snoozed the entire time while they put in his sutures. He didn't really wake up until the next morning.
He's totally fine now. If the cut wasn't in a visible area, you'd never even know it. He hasn't given any indication he's in pain, and he hasn't been rubbing the area or anything like that. There might be a small scar, but at his age, I'm guessing it will all but vanish as he gets older. Plus, at the rate he's going, this isn't going to be the last one. He's at that bad age where he's agile enough to get into trouble, but not agile (or sensible) enough to get out of it. And we can't babyproof life. The cabinets are locked now, but unless we raise him in a padded room like he's in a mental hospital, he's just going to find the next "cabinet". I guess we just hope he doesn't do any permanent damage and chalk it up to boys will be boys ... Although that's probably not PC, now. How about "kids will be kids"? That sounds better. Don't want to exclude all the little daredevil girls out there.
Well, like usual with this blog, I set out to write about six things and got through one of them. Here are the other calamitous events that went down this week, rapid fire.
*The student was named Michael Mullen, like the Navy admiral, and the presiding doctor's name was -- and I'm not making this up -- Doctor Doctor. That's even more on the nose than my friend from Australia who's an applied mathematician named Dr. Engineer. Before I met him, I corresponded with him, and he signed his emails Dr. F. Engineer -- F. being his first name. I read it as Dr. F., Engineer, as if F. was his last name and Engineer his title. So I kept referring to him as Dr. F., like he's a celebrity (Dr. Phil, Dr. Drew) or I'm a little kid at the dentist.
We spent Friday night in the emergency room at the children's hospital. Lil' S busted open the bridge of his nose and had to get it sutured. I'm not exactly sure how it happen. We were in the basement, and he was playing around in some empty cabinets. I turned my back for a minute, heard a small thud, turned back around, and he was on his hands and knees in the cabinet with blood pouring out from between his eyes. I grabbed a baby wipe and pressed it against the wound. He hated this of course, so he started throwing a fit, trashing this way and that, causing blood to get everywhere and making it difficult to stop the bleeding. I brought him upstairs; S saw what happened, and we basically pinned him down while S pressed her finger on the cut. I ran and got the first aid kit, but there wasn't really anything in the first aid kit we could use. The bleeding had stopped by the time I got back, and there was no band-aid that would fit properly. Plus, he was just going to pull off anything we put on. So we just gathered up our things, tossed him in his car seat, and headed to the ER.
(In retrospect, it's pretty funny that when we got to car, we realized that neither of us actually knew the way to the hospital. So we had one of those frantically-trying-to-pull-up-directions moments where both people are on their phone. "Should I search for children's hospital? Is it actually called 'children's hospital' or it just a hospital for children?", "Oh ... Michigan Street? I thought it was Minnesota.", "Is that Michigan SW or SE?", "I don't know why ... it's just not loading on my map app ... oh, wait, OK, yeah, I think we're good." I guess that's why it's good to have these things mapped out ahead of time. Even if you have smartphones.)
Apparently Lil' S punched himself out from all the trashing, because he actually fell asleep in the car. It made things much easier, as it meant S and I could exhale a bit. It was pretty intense for a few minutes. I knew the cut wasn't anything too severe, but that part of the body bleeds like crazy, and when you see blood flowing out of your kid's head like a spigot, it can get the adrenaline pumping.
[Pretty
much what S and I went through. Small cut between the eyes, heroin
overdose, no big diff. Actually this clip ends before my favorite part
of the scene. The stoner chick in the background taking a big rip off
her bong. I love that for some reason. It's like she takes a break to
watch the whole madness go down, and then when it ends -- right back to smoking weed.]
As you can probably imagine, the ER was a zoo. If you know people who think Obamacare should be repealed, take them to the ER of D.C.'s Children's Hospital on a Friday night, and ask them if our current system should just carry on as is. I would guess by looking at the kids and overhearing conversations that the majority of the people in there didn't have a problem that was appropriate for the ER. But it's the only access to a doctor they have. (And, by the way, for all the people claiming Obamacare is "redistributionist", who do they think is paying for these ER visits, now?) I think Lil' S's wound put us as a middle priority case, but I'm not sure. What I do know is that we waited for four hours before the doctor saw us. It's funny how once you reach about hour two, you just start looking for people to blame, and you start thinking you're some sort of triage scheduler -- "We got here a half hour before those people! A laceration should take precedent over a earache! And why isn't that nursing dressing that kid's wound now, so when the other nurse is free he can see us. And are these doctors doing their own paperwork?! Don't they have orderlies for that?!"
Lil' S woke up about 20 minutes into our visit, so we had to entertain him for a long time. It was like a bad airport experience, but worse because we rushed out the house and didn't have anything toys or anything for him -- we weren't prepared. And we didn't even get cell service in the hospital (that's what we get for switching to the cheaper carrier, I guess), so we couldn't show him YouTube videos. Also, he had a big nasty gash on his head. It was rough.
Once they actually came in to fix him up, things went pretty smoothly. They wrapped him up in a papoose, which is a board with thick straps connected to it. It's like a cross between a straightjacket and a swaddle blanket. Lil' S apparently thought it to be more like the latter, because he didn't really mind it. He did however mind very much the anesthetic-filled needle being poked into his cut. (S had to leave the room, at this point.) He also didn't like having his wound cleansed with pressurized water. The student* who was doing it "assured" me that he wasn't in any pain; it was just that, because water was getting in his eyes, he was experiencing the sensation of being drowned, like water boarding. That's the actual comparison he used -- "water boarding". Well, okay then. It's nice to know my son is merely being tortured, not actually hurt. But once all that prep work was done, he fell asleep again (it was about midnight, after all), and he snoozed the entire time while they put in his sutures. He didn't really wake up until the next morning.
He's totally fine now. If the cut wasn't in a visible area, you'd never even know it. He hasn't given any indication he's in pain, and he hasn't been rubbing the area or anything like that. There might be a small scar, but at his age, I'm guessing it will all but vanish as he gets older. Plus, at the rate he's going, this isn't going to be the last one. He's at that bad age where he's agile enough to get into trouble, but not agile (or sensible) enough to get out of it. And we can't babyproof life. The cabinets are locked now, but unless we raise him in a padded room like he's in a mental hospital, he's just going to find the next "cabinet". I guess we just hope he doesn't do any permanent damage and chalk it up to boys will be boys ... Although that's probably not PC, now. How about "kids will be kids"? That sounds better. Don't want to exclude all the little daredevil girls out there.
[A traditional Native American papoose. Not quite what Lil' S was in, but you get the idea.]
Well, like usual with this blog, I set out to write about six things and got through one of them. Here are the other calamitous events that went down this week, rapid fire.
- S and I each came down with some sort of weird stomach bug. It was short lived, but nasty. I spent Thursday night wrapped up in three layers of clothing and a blanket, with the heater on, and still had the chills. The next day I couldn't eat and was pooping up chocolate soft serve all morning. I had that unfortunate moment when you go to pass gas and realize it's not gas that just came out. Thankfully I was working from home.
- The cleaning ladies put my soda stream bottles in the dishwasher, and now they're all warped and don't fit on the nozzle properly. Very annoying.
- The cleaning ladies also set off the house alarm and the police came. This one is completely on me, though. I forgot they were coming and set the alarm. I got a call from the security company mid-commute to work and had to turn around to straighten things out. At least the officer was pretty cool. He didn't seem mad or anything. My problem was that I didn't set the "don't set the house alarm" alarm on my phone. Yes, I need an alarm to tell me not to set an alarm. Somehow I can remember how many RBI Alvin Davis had for the Mariners as a rookie, in 1984 (116), and I can remember the determinant of a 2 x 2 matrix (ad - bc), but I can't remember the cleaning ladies are coming on Tuesday. This type of memory is very good in school, but -- when S is getting a call at work telling her our house alarm is going off -- not so good in marriage.
- Lastly, lest you think everything is bad, a few good things did happen this week, as well. For one, we hosted a nice birthday party today for S's good friend E. It was supposed to be a surprise, but E put two and two together. Still fun tho. And I received word yesterday that I'm getting another crossword puzzle published in the New York Times. This one is a themeless (my first themeless), so it will run either Friday or Saturday. Not sure exactly when, yet. Pretty stoked about it.
*The student was named Michael Mullen, like the Navy admiral, and the presiding doctor's name was -- and I'm not making this up -- Doctor Doctor. That's even more on the nose than my friend from Australia who's an applied mathematician named Dr. Engineer. Before I met him, I corresponded with him, and he signed his emails Dr. F. Engineer -- F. being his first name. I read it as Dr. F., Engineer, as if F. was his last name and Engineer his title. So I kept referring to him as Dr. F., like he's a celebrity (Dr. Phil, Dr. Drew) or I'm a little kid at the dentist.
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