The injury

So 2 days after the boy turned 7 he and his brother found some chunks of concrete and decided to play with them. Thus landing us in the ER for the first time (with one of my kids). *Sigh* Where to start....I don't know that this post has much direction...I just need to get it out somehow....

First off, my super awesome husband is (today) on his way home from a week long mission trip to Alaska to help teach Vacation Bible School. He missed all of the fun ;) I am super thankful for my friend who is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and lives 5 minutes away (she also has 5 years ER experience and experience working with children who have Autism). God couldn't have crafted me a better friend for this situation.

I was working in the yard weeding and watering when the boys came out to play. I didn't plant our garden behind the garage this year because we are going to have work done back there. This spring when our electrician trenched a new line to the garage he put the extra concrete back there so it can be hauled away with the rest later. The boys went to play behind the garage and I figured they were digging in the old garden and at 7 and 4, I don't watch them like a hawk like I used to. So it wasn't until I heard the screaming that I rushed back there....

Blood all over his hand, and dripping on the ground. I grabbed him and dragged him to the house with me nearly falling on the way in. This was bad and for once my brain stopped working. I can typically think in an emergency, this time, the thoughts flew so fast I couldn't corral them. I got him to the bathroom sink where I turned on the water to flush the wound and saw it was deep. It was gonna need stitches. I have purposely avoided the ER with my super sensory kiddo, and there was no avoiding it this time. UGH! I ran around the house trying to find my phone and then sent a facebook message to my handy PNP-who thankfully was on facebook and tried to call me and eventually just headed over. She concurred with my thoughts on the hospital. She got a hold of her husband who took my youngest, her 3 year old and her 7 year old, while we took my 7 year old and her 11 month old to the ER. She stayed with us and helped keep us both calm. And I am SUPER thankful for her husband's willingness to take on my extra kiddo and spare his wife as he had them at the baseball field for his 7 year old baseball game, and then played a concert last night 45 minutes from where we live. At the college we all graduated from.  I am also thankful for all of their friends who stepped up to watch the 3 while my PNP's hubby was setting up and playing for the concert. Like my friend said, it takes a village, and sometimes that village is spread out far and wide!

Thankful for living near a big city with a brand new Children's hospital. It was 40 minutes away, but well worth the drive to get to a place where they only treat kids and don't look at you like you have 4 heads when you say he has SPD and is over-responsive. They look for ways to help! The doctor put his sunglasses on him when she turned on the bright light to look at his finger. And it was agreed that he needed to be sedated in order for the work to be done by an orthopedic doctor. Amazingly he cried at certain things but never got so upset he threw up :) He had to have an IV line put in and monitors on him and he weathered it all so well. I was so proud of him. I stayed with him until he was settled, but didn't stay for the procedure. I needed to go have my post-adrenaline cry. I had shed a few tears here and there, but hadn't had time to really let it go. And I still will need a few times to get it all out :( In all they removed the fingernail, put in 6 stitches (that dissolve HOORAY!) and placed a splint in the nailbed until his new nail grows out. Thankfully no broken bones and it's on the pinky finger of his non-dominant hand. Here he is sleeping off the sedation, you can see his bandaged hand.

The next hurdle is the antibiotics....he is on one of the nastiest tasting ones.  Did I mention he is SUPER taste sensitive? It's bitter, really bitter, so we have pills and have tried to open them and put them on food. HORRIBLE!!!! I even tried it-YUCK!!!!!! Again thankful for my handy PNP who can get the boy to swallow the pills, I cannot despite trying everything she does.

So I can say that our first ER experience wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, but I really don't want to ever go there again ;) If you live anywhere near Chicago, the new Lurie Children's Hospital is worth the drive for sure!