One Wheelchair, Three Butts: Date Night Gone Wrong

#1: Stitches

The phone rang in the middle of Date Night during an episode of Homeland, showing in our TV room. Kids Night Out was reporting that our son had crashed into metal bleachers while playing indoor tag. He had a gash on his leg that should be looked at.

We shut down Carrie and the CIA to retrieve our kids and head to urgent care. We had to wheel him in — and later out — in a wheelchair.

Though in pain, Reed remained his jovial self from the time we retrieved him until the time the doctor said he would need stitches. That declaration broke Reed’s resolve and a full-on panic attack ensued.

What I wish someone would have told me before the emergency room

Let me first say that I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but if someone would have told me some of these things, it may have saved us some dough and my kids some trauma.

`Tis a Flesh Wound

My son was jumping on the trampoline at my brother’s house. Bless their hearts, they made the effort to put the safety net around their trampoline. But, it was the metal stairs that lead up to the trampoline that my son cut his head on during a mad, three-kid-scramble to climb out. I was at work, my husband was at school, my sister-in-law did the right thing by calling us. Of course, we hurried over to their house to attend to our son. Although the cut wasn’t deep, it was bleeding a lot.

We took our five-year-old to the emergency room. By the time we arrived, the bleeding had stopped. We weren’t concerned about a concussion because my son was lucid and his pupils were their normal size, but we thought that stitches might be in order. When we finally saw the doctor, he informed us that head wounds tend to bleed a lot because there are a lot of capillaries near the surface. He said that the cut wasn’t deep or large enough to merit stitches. The doctor asked the nurse to put Neosporin on my kid’s head and sent us on our way. That was the most expensive tube of Neosporin ever!

Don’t Leave Home without your Pharmacy

Our other son tripped a couple weeks ago in the backyard and broke his arm.