one fall, five hours, and seven stitches

Mom, please don't read this. I can't be held responsible for you reading this, seeing the b-l-o-o-d word, fainting at work, hitting your head, having a concussion, and being rushed to the hospital. So just check back in a few days, please, Mother Dearest.

Ok. So. I'm putting some towels away in my bathroom yesterday when I head a fall. One of those falls that you hear, and it makes your heart stop beating for a few seconds and makes you run faster than Jesse Owens. So my heart stopped beating for a few seconds and I ran faster than Jesse Owens to the living room, where David had decided to swan dive into the corner of the fireplace. It only took me a few seconds to get to him, and he looked like an extra from a low-budget horror flick. I'm not kidding. Blood everywhere. By the time I picked him up and got to the kitchen to wipe him off, his face, his shirt, and part of my shirt were covered in blood. I thought maybe he had knocked a tooth out, too, because of all the blood that made it into his mouth, but it was only the spot on his forehead.

I saw he was going to need a stitch or ten, so once the bleeding really stopped, I taped a piece of gauze to his head, got a bag ready (full of books, snacks, and drinks- hey, man, I've got three young kids. I go places prepared!), got everyone changed and found shoes, and went up to the hospital. We made it there about an hour after it happened, which is pretty good, considering all the shoe-finding, and that we live about 20 minutes away. David was totally calm at this point, and jabbering on about whatever it was he was jabbering about.

I got the older kids settled in the lobby, checked in, and saw the triage nurse. There was only one doc in the ER, and there were several people to be seen before us, so I called my dear friend Kristie, who lives five minutes from the hospital, and her husband came and got the older two kids about ten minutes later. Yay!! My kids are absolutely wonderful, but I had no objections whatsoever about not having them there with us.

Have I mentioned that John was at work? Fortunately, he opened yesterday, and was able to get someone to bring him up to the ER as soon as the night manager came in. John got there around 4:30, just as we were going back to be seen by the doc. The doc looked at David's head wound, put a gauze soaked with topical lidocaine over the gash, and told us to wait. David continued to have a wonderful attitude, flirting with the female nurses, the male nurse, the doctor, the admissions girl, and the little old lady who (I think) had a broken wrist.

After the lidocaine worked it's numbing magic, the doc gave him the shots, waited a few minutes longer, and stitched him up. I got to watch the whole thing, and it was awesome. Seriously, I'm not being sarcastic. I'm a freak, and while I can't handle anything resembling a zombie movie, I love to know how the body works, and watch all those gross things doctors do. (My mother would have been on the floor, passed out. I'm not kidding. When I called to tell her where we were, I never got passed 'David cut his head' before she was shrieking and telling me to stop talking. It was a very interesting conversation.)

So we were at the ER for almost five hours total, and my little baby (yes, I know he'll be two in less than a month. No, I will not stop calling him my little baby. You can't make me. So there.) has seven stitches in his forehead. I got home, put the kids to bed, and poured myself a nice, cold, much-deserved beer. I drank most of it, watched some old-school Star Trek with John, and fell asleep on the couch before ten.

We go in on Friday to get the stitches taken out. Did I mention what a little trooper he was? He was amazing!!!!!!!!!! And I don't think he even noticed that he had stitches until he saw himself in the mirror this morning. :)