It's a Hard Knock Life... When You're 3!

Friday night around 6:30, Brenna was helping me rotate the laundry while singing "Hop on board the animal train. Come on, everyone! Toot, toot!" I had finished and left the room and said, "Come on animals!" So Brenna crawled out of the laundry room. She wasn't even going fast when all of a sudden, her hands stopped short down by her waste but her body kept going! And being top heavy, she landed on the very edge of a tile along the grout line with all her weight just under her chin. With a loud THUD, the tears started!

I had thought it was just gonna be a big bruise, but then after sitting down with her and getting a look at it, my stomach flipped when I saw the gash and smelled the blood! Poor baby! Chris was sure that it was no big deal until he saw it for himself. Then there was no doubt that stitches were in order!

I knew the ER would be crazy on a Friday night and I didn't want to expose her to that much more illness this time of year so I thought, lets take her to the pediatric Urgent Care..... Big mistake! We were there for 2 1/2 hours. Five minutes of that was in the waiting room. A vast majority of that was in the patient room with this numbing cream on her skin. But at least 45mins of that was in the getting of the actual stitches.

I had my suspicions when the doctor came in and asked the nurse, "Ok, where should I... um well I probably should be sterile for this part, huh?" From the very beginning, the patient nurse walked the doctor through each and every little step, giving encouragement and praise where needed. We layed Brenna down on the table. The doctor on one side of the table and the nurse and I on the other. The nurse had her arm supporting Brenna's neck and her hands restraining her head and jaw from as much movement as possible. They told me she would not feel the shot of lanicane because of the numbing cream so instead of holding Brenna down, I was trying to distract her by reading her a story. Well... they were wrong... big time! She nearly jerked herself right off the table!

 From then on. I was draped over the top of Brenna's body, holding both her and her arms down. She knew she had to be still, so she layed there with her little teeth clenched as hard as they could be, her neck and face bright red, and tears trickling down the sides of her eyes. It was enough to break your heart!

Both the nurse and the doctor were so impressed by how patient and sweet she was through the whole process. I was singing her songs and at one point asked if she wanted a specific song next and she said, "I really don't want songs right now, Momma." Oh, so sad!!!

It was so hard to watch her go through that! The doctor had NO idea what she was doing! She used three different needles to do 3 dumb stitches. Well four actually cause she had to do the last one TWICE cause she messed up with the knot. She kept poking the needle in and out and in and out, over and over again to make each stitch and while she knotted it, the needle was ALL over the place, from within a quarter inch of Brenna's eye, to jabbing me in the finger!

The stitches were so loose too, that by the next day, the middle one came untied and fell out. We had to take her to her peds office to get Steri-stips put on. Then the other two stitches came out and the cut got INFECTED! All in all... it was a rough experience!

One funny part of the whole thing was the Triage nurse was one of those "not-sure-what-your-gender-is" sort of gal. She had a scratch on her finger that Brenna was SO worried about! So we were sitting in the room waiting for them to do her stitches when Brenna goes, "I sure hope..." tilts her head to the side with a perplexed face, "was it a girl or a guy?" Me trying not to laugh, "She is a girl, honey." Brenna still not convinced, "Ok, well I sure hope that girl's finger get better." Hahaha! What a cutie!