Thursday, January 03, 2013

Before Facebook readers cry foul...


I said in my previous post that there was no new news to report. I suppose I should mention that I meant for 2013.  We did have some excitement at the near end of 2012. Saturday night, the Damonator decided to take on the dishwasher.

Dishwasher - 1, Damonator - 0.

That's right. The boys were playing in the kitchen, where the dishwasher full of air-drying dishes was gaping open. Apparently Damon skidded on a magnetic alphabet letter and crashed facefirst into the edge. Immediately there is a loud wail followed by the sound of running feet leaving the kitchen.  He'd chomped into the top part of his bottom lip and split open the bottom part of his bottom lip, right along his lipline.

To go or not to go? Having been parents now for nine and a half years with no previous ER visits under our belts, in spite of my insistence that Liam would be That Kid, we debated and polled some texted nurse friends. We decided to go even though it had stopped bleeding. We anticipated a decent amount of wait-time seeing as it was a Saturday night, but we hoped to be there early enough that drunks and/or accidents would be minimal.

We had our beloved Mama Rita, or Zita as Damon calls her, come "watch" the big kids (who'd already gone to bed) while we drove to the ER. There were a few people ahead of us and we were told to wait. Not even 5 minutes later we were called and got the first of our paperwork processed!

The nurses, Jill and TJ, and Dr. Roberta G, were terrific. It was decided that he'd need a few absorbable sutures and that he wouldn't be happy about getting them. They were right! It took both nurses and Dada and myself to hold this 35 pounder down, while he was wrapped like a burrito. He thrashed and wailed and cried, but they persisted and numbed his lip up with a needle that had to be an inch long. Then the Dr. began sewing the incision shut, and of course, there was a knot in her first pull. Poor little guy. So he ended up with three sutures and one extra as backup.

The three of them said he did fantastic and then offered him a small stuffed lamb. He really didn't want anything to do with it or them, but we claimed it as a trophy from our first ER visit! When we got home, he snuggled with his Zita for about half an hour and then went to bed.

Thanks to our Zita, to Jill, TJ, and Dr. Roberta, he's been at about 99% ever since. He started sucking his thumb again the next day; it was either too sore or still felt too numb for him to get comfort from that on Saturday night. It's healing up nicely, as the photos below show. The only problem he experienced was aggravation from the acidity of spaghetti sauce a few nights ago; once we gave him buttered noodles everything was fine again. Including his appetite.


 
 
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