Tough Boy

Just a few minutes after getting to work on Monday, my cell phone rang and it was daycare. I immediately thought he was out of diapers or his eye was goopy. His teacher said hi and then said she was giving the phone to Ms. Tammy, who is the director of the daycare. She proceeded to tell me that Carson had run into a sharp corner of a bookcase and cut his face, on his cheek, below his eye. She said that she thought it might need stitches but would feel better about it if we would come take a look.

I jumped in the car and called Darrin on my way. After a few calls to his pediatrician and a nurse practitioner friend, we found a clinic that does stitches. Darrin met us there. After an evaluation and an x-ray to make sure nothing was damaged structurally, we decided to opt for a couple stitches instead of glue. We were afraid he would pull the glue off since he pulled the bandaid off on the way there.

I'll make a long story short by saying that the experience was awful. The doctor was able to get one stitch and then tried unsuccessfully to get the second one in for quite a while. I finally asked if she could glue the rest. Carson was swaddled tightly so he couldn't move his hands and legs but his head was still shaking from screaming and crying. When we took the blanket off at the end, he was bright red and drenched in sweat. She said yes and we were done. I asked in the middle of it if he was numb and if he needed to be sedated. The doctor didn't answer either question. I'm guessing because she knew I wouldn't like her answers. She kept telling me to talk to Carson (which I was but it's impossible to talk constantly and it wasn't doing any good) and asking Darrin if he was going to pass out (he was sweating because it was 100 degrees in the room). We just wanted her to quite talking to us and finish the stitches. As I said, it was awful. Darrin and I were both worried that the other was going to go off on the doctor at any moment. We held our composure and got out of there without a scene.

He fell asleep on the way home. I was able to transfer him to his crib and he slept for several hours. The whole experience had worn him out. He woke up in a great mood and acted like nothing ever happened. Granny and Pa came to visit that night and brought him a minion balloon which he really liked.

In hindsight, we probably should have gone with the glue from the start. He has never touched the glue or even acted like he knew it was there. We had no way of knowing if he would try to pull it off or not, but considering how tough he is, we should have guessed that he would carry on without missing a beat. It's been healing nicely all week and the glue is already starting to wear off. His black eye is healing quickly too. All in all, he looks pretty good, especially since we are only 3 days out. Unfortunately, I'm sure this isn't the first and last for Carson.