String Bandages

I guess growing up with five boys, stitches were a pretty common thing. I don't know if any of the six of us survived childhood without stitches. So I knew the time would come eventually when I had to take one of our children in for stitches.

Yesterday I got a call from RM's teacher saying she had an accident on the playground. My first thought was, "Okay, I will be right there with a change of clothes for her." Being fresh from the world of potty training with EC, accident means the wetting of the pants. Nope, I was wrong--it was a little more serious than that and as her teacher went on, I knew RM was injured. Then the Primary school director took the phone from the teacher and said I needed to come right away. Agh! They said she hit her head above the eye and would need stitches. So I raced over to the school to find my little RM a little dazed and confused, in a lot of pain, and TERRIFIED that she would have to get a shot when we went to see the doctor. (PS, I still haven't told her they used a needle and thread to sew her up!)

A little boy was chasing her on the playground and I think what happened was that she stopped and he didn't and he accidently shoved her. She fell, hitting her head on the park bench. The blunt force trauma split her head wide open right at the end of her eyebrow. It was about a 3/4 of an inch gash. First we dropped Em off with Thomas at work and I took her to Cook's ER. I won't go into the details, but it was yet another traumatic experience at the ER. Not that she felt any more pain. The first thing they did was to put a cold blue jelly on it that numbed it right up so they could clean it without pain. Then they gave her a shot to numb it more (She doesn't know about that shot either...our little secret!) But I think that she had worked it up so much in her mind and she was so scared anyway, that it didn't matter that she couldn't feel physical pain.

The triage nurse kept saying she would need a string bandaid. I had in my mind the image of some gauze like bandage that would go on and come off easily without having to have stitches. But, to my surprise, string bandages ARE stitches...their little euphamism I guess. Personally, I think they should just call them stitches so parents don't have to feel like idiots asking what string bandages are.

I love it when Thomas is available to do the whole ER-for-injury-thing. I hate seeing my babies suffer, even though I know full well it is for their own good. He took her when she broke her finger and I am eternally grateful to him for that. But, yesterday I was brave and didn't cry once at seeing her terrified out of her mind. Now she has four stitches that she is actually quite proud of!