Scar face

Well we had a bit of adventure this weekend - our first trip to pediatric urgent care with an injury. We knew it was going to happen, and often joked about it and eventually it came.

Prior to this weekend, Connor has had a pretty bad cough and runny nose, typical cold. Usually these trigger an ear infection, and last Thursday night Connor was only sleeping 2 hours at a time and wake up screaming - his typical MO for ear ache. I stayed home with him on Friday morning as he was definitely not well. We had a rough night again on Friday, but it was better than the night before. We took an easy Saturday morning (missing the annual Belen Matanza unfortunately), but one we all needed.

Sure the chair looks cute, but it is an evil chair!

Connor was feeling a little caged, and we decided to run to Costco for a quick trip before lunch time. Over all successful trip for us, and a great one for Connor - lots of food and he got to play with some of the toys on display. On our way out, Connor fell in love with a little lounge chair (pictured) and we spent some time laying on it. A few forgotten items, and a return trip to see the chair and BLAMMO. On his way to the chair, he tripped and hit his face on the edge of the chair.

I quickly scooped him up, and by the time I turned around with our screaming kid I looked at Ali and the color drained from her face. He was bleeding everywhere! A nice gash above his eye. We quickly assessed the damage (stitches definitely, but eye okay - 6 years of rugby coaching thank you very much) and decided to head to pediatric urgent care. Both of us are pretty good in high pressure situations, especially Ali, who turned into super mom/the calmest person on the planet. Unfortunately, no one else around us was keeping their cool as everyone freaked around us.

Connor stopped crying in a few minutes, but was visibly upset by all the attention he was getting. A helpful employee informed us an ambulance was on the way (seriously?). Connor heard that and fixated on it. We calmy checked out and headed immediately to urgent care. By this time the wound was no longer bleeding, and Connor really didn't mind it. He was upset however, that he wasn't in an ambulance and started crying halfway there "I want an ambulance". The only funny part of this whole tale.

We got to urgent care just after 12:15, precariously close to nap time. Poor guy was pretty tired and just wanted to sleep and was not too happy about being at the doctor. But an iPhone kept him relatively happy until he finally fell asleep at 1:30 just as we went back to see the doctor.

We had a wonderful lady doctor who joked that her time in the urgent care is 50% stitching up little ones faces (there were two other kids with similar injuries that came in just before us). She quickly checked his ears and indeed, he did have an ear infection that was on the mend.



The actual stitches were no fun for anyone. Exhausted toddler combined with a bunch of injections to locally numb the area was not fun. It took four adults to hold him down - Mom laying on his body and holding his hands, dad on his feet, and a nurse holding his head. It was awful. He was obviously in pain at the shots to his eyebrow and was doing anything in his power to get away and screaming bloody murder. Again Mom is more no-nonsense than me. I was reduced to tears at one point - granted he did kick me in the face with both feet, but I think the crying came before that happened.

We let the anesthetic soak in, then session of holding writing toddler still as the doctor carefully and patiently stitched him up. Connor screamed and struggled the whole time but when we were done, we carried our exhausted and sweaty child home with an antibiotic prescription (for both ears and injury).

He fell asleep from 4 to 5 and then ate a great dinner before passing out at 7. Mom and dad laid around in a state of exhaustion and followed not too long afterward. So we got our medical emergency parental merit badges out of the way! While probably not the last time we will be heading to the doctors for an injury, hopefully the next one will be a little better as we will be able to explain and reason with him.


At home after his ordeal watching Nemo to relax.