A tale of 3 hospital visits

My sister Dani had her baby at 1 am December 31 and I was lucky enough to be there taking pictures. I got home around 3 and fell into bed, exhausted. The next morning we woke up and started getting ready to go back and visit Dani. We were planning on taking the kids to meet their new cousin. Things were kinda crazy with lots of people around and nobody noticed Ethan and Sawyer jumping on the air mattress...which was adjacent to a sharp edged fireplace. The next thing I know I hear a bang and my dad saying, "oh no, thats going to be bad." I picked him up, saw all the blood, and ran away saying something like, "I can't do this!!" Luckily I had my mom, dad and brother in law. By the time I composed myself they had him laying on the counter with a sterile gauze covering the wound. His clothes were all bloody but I was able to get close to him and talk to him.Ui My sister called 911 and the ambulance soon arrived. They were afraid of a neck injury so they had to strap him to a little baby board with a tiny little neck brace. It was adorable and frightening at the same time. He hated being restrained and I think he was screaming more because of it than because of his injury. I rode in the ambulance with him and he calmed down about halfway to the hospital. He just kept saying, "All better." He really wanted out of that thing! We got to the Utah Valley ER which was just 4 floors below where my sister was in labor and delivery. The ER was full so we had to wait in the hallway for a room for a little bit. My dad had driven behind the ambulance and by the time he found us Sawyer was sitting there laying on the bed all strapped in and staring at the wall, completely ignoring us. By that point he was just plain mad! We had to wait a long time for the doctor and Sawyer just laid on his bed watching cartoons. Eventually he came in and decided to put him out for the stitches. He got a shot in the leg with the medicine, which he hated, and then shortly after was out. The Dr did the stitches while telling me funny stories. I did not make eye contact with the cut once but I'm told you could see skull. He had one stitch on the inside and 8 on the outside. While he was asleep the Dr also removed the staple that was in the back of Sawyer's head from a week ago when he had fallen out of a tree in Tucson and I had taken him to the ER there. I heard the Dr telling the nurses outside in the hall that he was going to prescribe bubble wrap for him. After we were all done I sat by his bed and waited for him to wake up. Grammie, Papa and Kate had come while he was still asleep and Kate was so excited to give him a balloon and a little stuffed dog. She brought it to him and just laid it on his sleeping chest. We had left the house in a whirlwind and she was following her mom's example and completely freaking out. Luckily I had my sister and mom there to calm her down, but she was still worried about him. The Dr warned me that he would be groggy and that he might even hallucinate or something. The first thing he said to me when he woke up was, "I all better." And it was true. He had to sit up and drink a little but we were soon released and we walked straight from our ER room to Dani's recovery room where we visited a little before going home completely exhausted. Ryan had just finished up at Baylor the day before and was driving from Houston up to meet us with all this stuff going on. I told him the next ER visit is his turn.

Today Sawyer keeps telling me "All better, band aid off!" but we still have a week to go. When Ryan saw it he said it was much bigger than I had told him. I thought I had heard the Dr say an inch (and I hadn't fully examined it, of course) but I guess it is more like an inch and a half. Ryan says it makes him more manly though and Sawyer's uncle Michael had bought him a little tool set to commemorate the event. Like when Kate had her stitches, I think it is hard to see my perfect little child's face with a potentially large scar. But what can you do?

All day I kept having flashbacks to it and having to shudder. But I just have to keep reminding myself that it is over and that he was taken care of and that everything looks great now. And it looks like I'm going to have to get used to it because he has proved time and again that he is one accident prone little boy!

**i forgot to mention the bruises he had already on his head. he had ran into the same fireplace and got the bruise in the middle of his forehead...then he ran straight into the kitchen counter and got the bruise on the right side of his forehead...when I left my kids with jen and michael as I was with dani in the hospital they jokingly said they would work on a matching bruise on the left. and now he has one only much much worse. seriously, I don't think you can be more accident prone than that!**