Our First Trip to the Emergency Room

My oldest son, Cody, will be five years old next month.  He's never suffered from a major illness or virus with the exception of eczema.  However, last night, around 5:30, my husband showed up at my work with Cody in his arms.  "He's hurt, I think he needs stitches."

There was my little man, eyes red from crying, bandage slapped on his forehead above his right eye, jacket on inside out and streaks of blood on his face and hands.  And there was my husband, with the "I don't know what to do" look.

So I called my boss and told her I was leaving early (no problem), and off we went to the hospital.

We live in a small town, and all the clinics were closed, so the hospital is about 1/2 hour away.  On the trip,  Cody seemed to have recovered from the shock, and was happily singing and chatting away in the back seat.  Each time I looked, I noticed a little more blood had trickled from the wound and his eyelid was starting to turn red.  Nevertheless, he wasn't noticing it, so I chose not to draw attention to it.

By the time we actually got to the hospital, Cody was pretty much enjoying the great adventure.  Cooperative and polite at triage and registrations, he didn't even squirm when they wrapped a strip of gauze all the way around his head to hold the new bandage on.  He ended up looking like a MASH war victim, rather than a kid.

Fortunately, we were not the only ones in this boat, since the nurse told us that Cody made kid #75 to come in for stitches just that day.  True enough, two other battle wounded tots were in the waiting room also.

All in all we were in and out in about three hours.  The stitch doctor actually stayed late to fix up our Cody, since apparently, he had been on a roll for the day.  He was sympathetic to my husband, asking him how far into the doghouse he was.  I politely rolled my eyes, but kept quiet.

What most surprises me about the whole ordeal is not how quickly my son regained his happy disposition, but how "not freaking out" I was.  Even my hubby kept asking when I was going to get stressed or panicked or whatever.  Oddly enough, it didn't strike me as something to fret over.  Bumps, hurts, scrapes and yes, even the odd stitch (or four) are what I had expected from parenthood.  Partly because I knew right away it was not life-threatening.

Granted, he is now "scarred for life" but all in all, there are much worse things that could happen.  The other reason I escaped a freak-out attack, I wasn't there to see the blood or hear the screaming when it actually happened.  I know myself well enough to knowing the details saves me from a lot of overreacting, and also explains why my husband, usually calm and cool, didn't quite know what to do