The scene I walked in on was not at all what I expected. I had thought maybe he had hit his head on the bunk bed or something. Instead I found a little boy in the middle of the floor surrounded by his big brother's back pack (and everything that had been in the back pack) and blood all over his hands. Among the contents of the backpack on the floor I spotted a blood covered (open) pocket-knife. I quickly grabbed him and took him to the laundry room and to discover which hand/finger was hurt and applied pressure with a clean rag before taking him upstairs (where first aid supplies are kept) with the intent of cleaning and bandaging. One quick look (once upstairs) told me that I could not handle this on my own, despite my desire to avoid the ER.
I'm so thankful to all of my kids who flew into action as I cared for their little brother. One brought me the first aid kit (before we realized it was not needed). Miss J thought through the situation enough to know that Mr. K would want a toy car and put it in my bag. She also packed snacks and water bottles. Mr. R had very willingly taken Miss A from me at my first realization of a problem and continued to care for her and get the two of them (he and her) ready to go to the ER with us. Mr. M investigated the mess downstairs and recruited Mr. S and Miss J to help with clean up. He also helped get Mr. K ready to go (pants, shoes, socks etc). He also helped me get Mr. K situated in his car seat and then took over applying pressure to the wound while I drove to the ER. Miss E held my phone so that I could listen/talk to the advice nurse while caring for Mr. K and moving around to get myself ready to leave. She then held down the fort while I was gone so that I did not have to take all 8 kids to the ER. I think we were out the door in 15 minutes or so.
Once we got to the ER Mr. R continued to care of Miss A (who was asleep by this time). I'm thankful he thought to bring his mini tablet and got it going in the car and waiting room for Mr. K. Once Mr. K was comforted by this and the car that Miss J had packed he quickly fell asleep (remember, he was supposed to be napping when all of this started). A friend who is an ICU nurse at that hospital came by to check on us.
We were finally called back where a PA inspected the wound (which was still slowly bleeding over an hour later). Yep, stitches were needed. How would I like to approach this with him? How would he handle this? He and I moved over to the bed to cuddle. Hooray, the hospital had (good) wifi! I let him pick a netfilx movie to watch on my iPad (which Miss J had packed for us). While he did react when getting a shot to numb the finger and again for the pressure of getting the stitches he did very well overall. His reaction was more of the verbal sort, but he did lay very still in my arms.
One nurse offered him a popsicle during the procedure and he was very content to sit and lick it while we finished bandaging it and doing paperwork.
He had a rough evening and has often cried out today that his finger hurts. When asked if knives are toys or if he should be touching them his eyes get big and he says "NO!". I'm thankful that this painful lesson was not more painful or damaging. I'm thankful that my kids all worked together in this small emergency. No one panicked and we got things taken care of in an orderly manner.
I'm thankful that not only do I keep our "Sunday" bag packed with snacks, activities, diapers, wipes etc that I could have grabbed in a pinch, but that I'd also already packed up our errand day bag for the evening prayer meeting. All the kids had to do was add a couple of things like the toy car and iPad and we were ready to head to the ER.
*I'm an independent Consultant for Thirty-One gifts. If you're interested in this or other bags feel free to contact me for more information.
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