lighting

We had our first trip to the ER last night, and our first round of stitches. Braden hit his forehead on the corner of our rock steps in the front yard. The baby sitters were just about to arrive, and we were headed out the door for a fun adult only evening.... or so we had hoped.

I could hear Braden screaming, and I knew it was bad. A trip upstairs to clean up confirmed what I had imagined... a small but VERY deep gash - smack dab in the middle of his forehead.

We promptly walked downstairs and got in the car to head to the hospital. I picked the one closest to us.

The place was packed. PACKED. And Braden was very scared. He knew what was coming, and the thought of a needle in his head had sent him over the edge. He was already tired, from a long weekend of fun and we hadn't had any dinner yet either. The strange people and noises that greeted us upon arrival had him shaking.

We were promptly checked in and I filled out all the necessary paperwork. After about 20 minutes we were escorted to the "fast track" waiting room. It was completely empty and there was a TV... the combination of the two had an immediate calming effect on B. Another 20 minutes later we were placed in a room.....

Braden had perked up a bit at this point and seemed to be pretty at ease while we laid around waiting for the doctor.

Finally (almost 45 minutes) the doctor arrived. After a brief chat he and I agreed that stitches would be best and after a few shots of litacaine we were in good shape... or so we thought.

Apparently all those shots did not completely numb up the area. I was later told that there are hundreds of nerves in the forehead and face and that partial numbess is pretty common. After one stitch, and much screaming (since the doctor didn't believe Braden that he could still feel what was going on) we stopped and tried to numb the area up more. Which just produced more screaming about his nose (aparently the doc struck a nerve with the needle)... realizing that no more amount of juicing B up was going to help we decided to push ahead with the last two stitches.

Total time in that little room was 2 hours. Most of which, Braden had been lying on his back to keep his head from gushing blood. Most of the time I sat next to him wondering how in the heck this would have gone if it had been Tristan lying there... not as well I imagine.

Besides the obviously stinky reason that we were there, it was actually a pretty enjoyable 2 hours. It had been a while since Braden and I just sat and visited. He is old enough now to carry on a conversation about how he feels, what he is thinking and about the future, which made the time pass (kinda) quickly. He was so interested in the whole process, and about all the stuff in the room, from the instruments on the wall to the "what level is your pain" poster. He made mention of Mason and me trading in our date night for a doctor appointment date night instead.

The idea that Harry Potter has a scar like he is going to have seemed to not only comfort him but perk him up a bit. I think the chocolate ice cream that was waiting for him at home did too.