Last Thursday after a successful evening of gymnastics and baths I was messing around with my camera and snapping away at the boys trying to see if f/1.4 is wide enough to take flash-less pictures of the kids at night. (It's a very typical scene around here: the boys doing what they do and me trying to document as much as possible because I don't want to miss a minute of it and I don't want to forget a second of it.)
I was taking pictures of the boys on the couch, capturing the athletic activities they do every night on the couch because I thought it would be a cute blog post. I am about 5 feet away from the boys while they are wrestling around on the couch with Go! Diego Go! breaks every few minutes. During a Diego lull in the action, I go into the kitchen for something and about a second later I hear Owen let loose with a LOUD scream. My heart skips a beat.
- See that window in the picture? Just out of the frame are sill-less window ledges. There's no rounded edges of a sill, just the sharp edges.
Owen had hit his head on that edge and made an inch and a half gash in his forehead.
I took one look at his head and knew it was more than a bandaid could handle. In about 30 seconds I made the decision we had to go to the emergency room. I was by myself, so I was in super "i can handle this" mode. I grabbed some shorts for Andrew, and got both kids in the car. Andrew is a observant child and picked up right away that he just needed to do what I asked - no questions. And he did. I was so proud of him.
We got in the car and drove to the hospital. Owen was very calm and even fell asleep on the way - AND I promptly woke him up. No unconscious babies with a head wound!
We got to the hospital and I left the car with the valet (got to love Orange County hospitals). Went right up and got triaged. Owen was alert and I was calming down. The bleeding had practically stopped and he was just interested in what was going on around him. A few minutes later Eric arrived from the airport.
We were seen by a doctor about 30 minutes after arriving. Stitches. Owen had to be strapped down in a toddler straight jacket- that was awful. The lidocaine shots right into the cut was awful. The actual stitching wasn't too bad, but by this point Owen was just MAD and screamed the entire time. In 15 minutes he was all stitched up and free. Owen was back to himself as soon as it was all done.
I have a feeling this is just the beginning of such things with Owen. He's the kind to jump right in and not really worry about what's going to happen next.
This isn't the post I imaged I'd write when I was ignoring their bed time and just letting them rough-house around.
3 comments:
Way to go Leslie in handling this situation. I can imagine the same type of injuries happening to Caleb and his brother/sister on weekends when Jon is out of town. I hope I will keep it together as well as you did! We are glad Owen is doing well now! :)
Glad the little cutie is okay.
We six kids survived without many trips to the emergency room. The only one I can think of was when Tim was pumping Maurine on the back of his bike and Tim said, "Look Maurine, no hands! and she panicked and clamped her feet together, right into the spokes. She had to stay in the hospital overnight by herself and she was only 6 or 7, (I think)because there were 5 other kids at home. She had to have a skin graft for the top of her foot! Ouch!
Ask Tim about that one. There may be other ER trips, but none that I was involved in.
Eeks...that's scary! Great job, Leslie!! Glad Owen is OK!
Post a Comment