My Big Brave Boy!!!

****Warning if you are grossed out by blood or medical procedures you might want to be cautious reading this!****

So yesterday morning I woke up feeling like it was going to be a bad day. I don't normally feel like this or start my day off being so negative, but it's just the way I felt. Of course I was hoping I was wrong! The day started out fine...breakfast, nap time for Ella and then I got out all my stuff to do some sewing. That's when the boys started getting into trouble by touching all my sewing stuff. So I told them that Mommy wanted sometime to get things done and they needed to go outside and play. They went out onto the deck to play in the sandbox together. Before long I hear Jack say, "My jar....he threw my jar!" I knew immediately that Owen threw whatever it was that Jack was playing with down off the deck. I told Owen that was a bad choice and he would need to go get it for Jack. He went down the stairs and then was yelling at Jack to come down with him, which I had to address that and tell him again to go get Jack's jar. I had just enough time to walk back inside and sit down and then I heard Owen screaming. My first thought was Jack had thrown something off the deck and hit Owen in the head. I go out there and Jack doesn't have his normal guilty look on his face so I ask Owen what happened and start walking downstairs. He says he hurt himself and I see a little blood on the top of his middle finger. He's really crying so I hug him and then reach out to look at his hand and that's when Owen wipes his hand on himself and I see all the blood. I turn his hand over and brush a lot of blood down his arm with my fingers. That's when I see the gaping wound and immediately squeeze his hand shut and say, "We're going to the hospital!" This is when Owen started crying more and just saying he wanted to go to bed.

I took him upstairs and washed out the wound a little, but that just made him scream more so I got a washcloth wet and wrapped his hand. Then I called Michael (new job means no time to take off) so then I called our neighbor and she came over. Owen was crying and coughing...I thought he might throw up so once Vonda got to the house I had popped a movie in for Jack and pretty much just left with no instructions at all. It was so crazy! Ella was crying...she had woke up early from her nap, Jack just wanted Mama and Owen was freaking out. Plus I was trying not to freak out because the sight of blood isn't something I enjoy very much. I was worried that Owen wouldn't do good in the car because I couldn't hold him, but he did great. Almost once we got in the car he said, "God will heal me!" I love this kid...I can honestly say that when I'm in pain that is not my first thought! I asked Owen if he wanted me to pray and we did. I also talked about how God uses doctors to help him heal people. He was very nervous and already talking about getting a pokey...aka shot! I was very honest with him and said, "Yes, they will give you a pokey, but it will make your hand feel better so they can fix it."

I just drove to the hospital closest to us...Saint Francis. There was no one in the waiting room. They took his vitals and then we coaxed him into opening up his hand so they could look at it and wrap it up better. We only waited for about 5 minutes before they took us back to the room. It was probably another hour and half before they actually came into stitch him up.

First up was the pokey....he was so worried about this he literally asked every person that came in the room if they were the one with the pokey. They ended up basically swaddling him in the bed sheets to keep him still and he did really good. Of course he cried, but the numbing effect was pretty fast.

Here's the wound before they cleaned it. Since he was bleeding so bad I didn't even look around in the backyard to see what he fell on. I did ask him and he said he slipped on the rocks and fell on a piece of wood.


Next they had to clean out the wound with this cool water squirting thing.

By this time Owen wasn't feeling anything and he really liked the cold feeling of the saline solution.

He was so relaxed that he even asked me to turn up the volume of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

Next was the stitches....this was where things got a little more interesting. On about the 4th stitch the doctor found a piece of glass in his hand. We kept asking him, but he was sure he fell on a piece of wood and I couldn't for the life of me think of why there would be glass in the backyard.

The doctor decided to finish stitching him up since she was almost done...7 stitches total!

Then he got to finally eat some crackers and apple juice. After talking it over with some other doctors they decided to get an X-ray of his hand to see if they could see anymore glass. Well they thought they saw something so they wanted a better look so he had to get a CT scan as well. After reviewing that he were sure he had at least 3 maybe 4 more pieces of glass in his hand and they wanted us to go to Mary Bridge to see an Orthopedic Specialist.

By this time we had been at the hospital since 10am and it was 1pm and I left Jack and Ella with out elderly neighbor and no instructions. I was super worried so I called a few people to see if they could go and relieve her, but my friend Kim was at a doctor's appt for her son and my Dad couldn't leave work just yet. So I called Michael back and ask him to go home. Thankfully his boss was really understanding and he was able to leave. It was nice to be able to fully focus on Owen and not worry about what was going on at home.

After getting our discharge papers it was off to Mary Bridge Children's Hospital 5 hours after we got there.

We were suppose to get on the "fast track" at Mary Bridge, but they had just had a huge influx of patents so we had to wait....2 hours in the waiting room. Since it's a children's hospital they did have awesome stuff for kids to play with. Owen really enjoyed these game stations. After waiting for at least an hour and half Michael got to the hospital. My parents came up to our house once they got off work so he could join me. Owen had been asking for his Daddy all day so he was happy to see him.

What do you do when you've been at 2 hospitals for almost the whole day...chew on the remote control cord of course!

We were very honest with Owen and told him that he was going to get another pokey at the second hospital. The nurses were all so happy that we didn't lie to him. I couldn't imagine doing that. I just explained to him that it going to help him feel numb and go to sleep so they could really clean out his hand so it could get better. Here the nurse is checking for a good vein.

After getting his IV port put in. He did really well! We had to hold him down of course and he cried, but it was over fast. He was so cute when he was crying while they were holding him he said, "Please let me go!" It was so sweet that even though he was scared he used his manners.

A little while later they came in and hook him up with all the leads that check his vitals and he got to "kiss" the thermometer. He was actually starting to like all this medical attention.

Here he is starting to get all loopy! Instead of giving him just Ketamine like Ella had this doctor likes to give a little bit of Ketamine, but mostly Propanol because it has less side effects when the kids wake up.

The doctor spent a lot of time digging in the wound and cleaning it out really good. The pieces of glass were SO tiny there was really no way we were going to see if they actually came out or not. The wound sure looked nice and clean though. The doctor did decided to not stitch it as tightly as they did at Saint Francis so if there is anything glass stuck in there it will have a chance to move out. I believe he has 3 maybe 4 stitches instead of 7. Also since it was stitched more loosely they ended up have to preform a little bit of liposuction on Owen by cutting out a chunk of his fat that wasn't going to be held in anymore.

All done, but still in la la land!

They really needed him to wake up a little before they could let us leave. He was SO out of it! The nurse had asked him earlier what color Popsicle he wanted when he woke up and he said orange. She brought it in for him and she used that to help him wake up. :) He was so funny during this time because he was talking, but not making much sense. It took him a while to come around and then he got really paranoid. He was still scared from the pokey and I told him that he wasn't getting anymore shots. I asked him if he trusted me and he said he did. He was a bit teary and I think that was just an effect of the medicine. We ended up getting home from the hospital at 10pm...12 hours after he got cut. Oh yeah when Michael got home he checked out the backyard and discovered that he cut himself on a broken baby food jar that was right next to piece of wood. That was the jar that Jack was talking about. I had completely forgotten that I had given them jars to play with in the sandbox months ago. Michael's pretty sure the jar didn't break when he through it off the deck because all the pieces were under the deck. What we don't know is whether or not Owen threw the jar and broke it or if he was carrying it and it broke when he fell.

Here is the brave boy this morning all bandaged up. He slept really well and he's been eating good too. Thankfully according to the doctors he didn't cut the tendon and there shouldn't be any nerve damage. We have to keep a close eye on it in case it gets infected and we need to take him to his pediatrician in a week to have the stitched removed. The thing I've learned from Ella's ordeal 2 months ago and Owen's ordeal yesterday is...just go straight to a Children's Hospital because odds are they are going to want to transfer you there anyway!