String Band Aids

Beth called me at work this morning sounding all like the cat who ate the canary. I asked her what was up and she informed me that our oldest had a wound on his knee and the daycare was concerned. Would I go and look at it? I told her I would and then I received a picture message from the assistant director showing me the wound. It looked ugly, but I couldn't really see it very well so decided to go in person.

Max had been trying to get on one of the new 3-wheelers at school, lost his balance and fell on the edge of the concrete patio. When I got there I wasn't sure how bad it really was. It wouldn't stop bleeding and seemed to do more when he walked around. I called the doctor's office and they said that the fact that it was bleeding more when he walked meant that he would probably need at least one stitch. Problem was, the doctor's office didn't do any suturing, and the children's close to home centers didn't open until 3p. I could go to the ER but I really didn't want to sit around for hours. The nurse told me that it would be ok to wait for the close to home to open since it would be only 5 hours after the injury occurred. Apparently, they don't like to suture wounds after 7-8 hours.

So, I went back to work for awhile, leaving at 2pm to go and get him. When he figured out where we were going he announced that his knee felt all better now, really it does.....

The nurse who first looked at it thought it was just superficial. Then the doctor came and and looked at it better (and more painfully). She felt that it was deeper than it looked at first glance because it was swollen. She wanted to talk to the suture expert. Max heard the word stitches and got very concerned. He didn't like it too much when the suture person came in. She told him that he would need a couple of string band aids and that it was no big deal.

A few minutes later Max was laying on the gurney with me holding down the top part, another nurse laying on his legs while the other one injected his cut. He screamed something horrible and I felt just awful. I can't imagine that doing the sutures without the lidocaine would have hurt as much as getting the shots did. He has 4 sutures and a HUGE bandage. The location on his knee makes it a bit harder to keep safe and they want him wearing the ace bandage until the sutures are removed in 14 days.

After the shots and he had calmed down a little bit, Max sobbed at me, "Momma, I love you." It just about broke my heart.