Holy Freakin' Sh#t!!

Holy freakin' shit.  That sums up last night for me.

I decided I could beat that demon apathy and got my ass on the treadmill.  I was building up a good head of steam at about the 20 minute mark when Teddy burst into the room.

Ted: Mom, come quick!  I think Jack needs stitches.
Me: Fuck!  (cuz you know Brad's out of town!!!  Things only happen when Brad's out of town.) 

Jack has a kitchen towel (thankfully he grabbed a clean one out of the drawer as I discovered when I went to get another one and found blood spatter in the drawer) pressed to his forehead and he's screaming.  I get him to show me and it's a 2.5 - 3 inch gash in the middle of his forehead - think Harry Potter only it's straight.

Sure enough Jack needed stitches.  They were playing frisbee and Jackson was running for the frisbee at top speed and his forehead collided with a metal mailbox.  Ted says his head shot back and his feet kept going, I'm damn glad I missed the visual of that.

While in the ER waiting room, my anxiety prone child spends a fair amount of time hunched over the toilet thinking he's going to throw up at just the prospect of stitches.  Eventually we make it back to the doctor (the nurse has already numbed the area with this cool topical paste) and she looks to see how deep it is and discovers it's straight through the muscle and down to the bone.  How delightful.  She wants a plastics consult - which I wanted as well - though our hospital doesn't have plastics on call.  It's affiliated with Johns Hopkins, but it isn't Hopkins.  She calls plastics and she has two little kids at home and her husband is out of town so she can't come.  We discuss transferring down to Hopkins to see plastics - while Brad is arranging via phone a plastics consult for the next morning with a friend of a friend.  Ultimately I decide more waiting would be just too much for Jackson as it had already been several hours by this point and get the pediatric ER doc to do it.  She was great.

So picture this my good friends...  I've gotten them to give Jack some medicine to relax him so he's a little less freaked out and now she goes to clean the already numbed wound.  Only - I guess the numbing paste stuff didn't penetrate all the way into the deep recesses of the wound because as she starts gently squirting it with whatever she was squirting it with - he starts screaming!  MOMMY! IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, MOMMY!!! MAKE HER STOP!!!  It was really fun.  She stopped and got Lidocaine to numb it further.  But as you know, Lidocaine stings like the holy fires of hell for a minute or two - so the entire time she was v.e.r.y.  t.h.o.r.o.u.g.h.l.y. applying Lidocaine to the entire area and for a minute or two more, he was screaming bloody murder.  IT STINGS IT STINGS MOMMY MAKE IT STOP, MOOOOOMMMMMYYYYYY. Sobbing and sobbing.  I swear to god I almost passed out.  I'm not the least little bit squeamish so I was watching what she was doing, waiting for the stuff to fully take effect, willing it to happen faster.  So I don't know if it was that I became squeamish because he is mine - or if it was just the helplessness of having him squeeze my fingers until the bones were rubbing together while he begged me to make it stop or a combination of both - but I started to get all sweaty and the room got a little wavy, and I became all kinds of nauseated, and I was completely afraid I was going to pass out.  I could reach with my leg a little stool on rollers and I got it under me and sat down.  I just knew if Mommy passed out, Jackson would die - so I somehow managed to get myself the fuck over it by concentrating on a picture across the room and mentally leaving for a few minutes - but holy fucking shit that was close.  I am so not a fainter.  I think I've fainted once in my life and that was due to extreme pain.

We're driving home from the hospital and....

Jack: will this be a scar I have for the rest of my life?
Me: It sure will.  We'll have to come up with a good story.
Jack: Well... Teddy's already used the "knife fight" one.
Me: yeah, well I think you could still use it if you wanted to - or, how about Harry Potter's apprentice?
Jack: Hmmm? Yeah.  I haven't earned the rest of the lightening bolt shape, I'll need a few more knives for the zig-zags. 

Apparently he was fine by that point.  (Uh, Jack... Mommy needs a little more time and a lot of alcohol to be able to switch gears back to fine - I'll have to get back to you when I'm there)

Anyway - he ended up with two stitches inside for the muscles (I was surprised it was only two, but it was just such a straight thing she said it went together perfectly) - and 12 stitches outside.  Frankenstein in the making.  I've talked to the most delightful plastic surgeon this morning who completely reassured me and gave me all kinds of wonderful advice for after care and wants to see him in a week to remove the stitches.  And I'm pretty sure that by the time I wake up tomorrow I'll be able to relax some of my muscles.

Before and after pictures - don't look if you get squeamish!