World’s Worst Mommy Part 2

Well. Here it goes, the rest of the story. As the nurse leads us through the door, past the smalllish exam rooms an into a large mini-emergency room. SuperChunk is still calmer than expected. As they ask to see her hand she starts to get a little upset, but it’s not to bad, yet. I peel away the layers of dark blue wash cloth that now look purple and it’s not bleeding anymore. Thank god for small miracles. The doctor asks me if SuperChunk only has one cut. I say yes. She asks if I’m sure, because there seems to be a lot of blood on us. I assure her there are no cuts on the rest of her body. SuperChunk lets the doctor look at it and as soon as she says “ok, that’s good.” SuperChunk immediately puts her hand back on the washcloth for me to cover it back up. That’s when she realizes what was about to happen. They were going to touch her owie. That’s not good. She starts to shake and then cry. As the doctor looks at her finger agiain, and then touches it, it starts to bleed all over again. (And the all over also describes where the blood decided to go.) SuperChunk lets out a loud “OWIE! OWIE! OWIE!” and my heart feels like it’s going to break. I’m asked to put pressure on her fingers while they get the local ready. The doctor leaves and SuperChunk calms down. The doctor comes back and gets SuperChunk all numbed up. As soon as she even tries to touch SuperChunk she starts to scream “OWIE!” all over again. They numb her up and leave yet again. And I notice a pattern. They leave SuperChunk calms down, they come back, she screams. Hmmm. What to do? I ask SuperChunk if she wants me to sing to her. She says yes, so I sing. The bad thing was the only song I could remember was the Sunday School version of the alphabet song. But it seemed to help. Until she thought the doctor was touching her again. I say thought because I was leaning over her so she couldn’t see what was happening. But it didn’t stop her from screaming. The nurse comes in to irrigate her finger and realizes that there is a second cut on her index finger. But it isn’t bleeding and doesn’t look like it will even need a band-aid. As I hold her little hand still the nurse begins and SuperChunk gets even louder. Afeter what seems like ten minuted when it was probably only two she’s done. The nurse leaves to get the doctor. SuperChunk calms down. The doctor comes back and Shawn asks the doctor if it’s possible that her finger isn’t numb enough because SuperChunk is still screaming. The doctor says no because she isn’t even touching her. Oh. The doctor tells me to hold her as still as I can she will be putting in three stitches. I say ok and look at Shawn and say I’m sorry. He looks at me a little puzzled and asks why. I tell him I’m sorry this happened, because it shouldn’t have. He tells me it’s okay, it happens. As the doctor starts to stitch her up I think, three stitches, is that all? I think there should have been five. I’m worried about scarring. With three it won’t be bad, but I dtill think there should be more. I realize one of the reasons the doctor is doing threee is because she’s working on a screaming 2 1/2 year old. So I say nothing. We’re finally done and she gets a couple of pink Barbie band-aids. Rapunzels pops her head around the corner and asks if she can come in now. We tell her yes. In a very sing-songy voice she tells SuperChunk that she’s all done, you got stitches, that’s really cool. They ask me to wait while they get the paperwork. I start to worry. What did Rapunzel tell them while sitting at the nurses station? Did she tell them I broke her hand last year? Because that’s how she says it, “Mommy broke my hand.” I worry that DCFS is going to show up any second. But they don’t and we’re sent on our way. I’m plagued with if’s. If only I’d loaded the dishwasher that night. If only I didn’t like my knives so sharp. If, if , if. They haunt me. SuperChunk had her stitches removed yesterday. It looks like it’s healed okay, but there is a little bit of an infection. So she’s on antibiotics for a few days. Alls well that ends well. Right?

World’s Worst Mommy Part 1

What could possibly make me feel like the “Wor’d’s Worst Mommy”? My kids getting hurt and it being my fault. First, I break Rapunzel’s hand and now SuperChunk had to get three stitches in her little finger. And it’s all my fault. How could it possibly be my fault you ask? I’ll tell you how. I closed the sliding door of a full-sized van on Rapunzel’s little hand in January ‘04. No, it wasn’t in the door when I started to close it, but it doesn’t change the fact that it happened and I was the one who did it. The worst part was that I knew in my heart that it was broken, but it didn’t look broken. So what did I do? I bought her an ice cream at McDonald’s that she couldn’t eat because her hand hurt so much that it made her stomach hurt. So we put an ice pack on it, gave her some tylenol and went on our way. The next morning her little hand was all swollen again, and the purple spot wher the latch bounced off her little hand was even darker. At this point we’re only a half a day from home so we keep going. She can move her fingers and use her hand so it doesn’t seem to be to bad. She says it aches all the time but only really hurts if she touches the purple spot. So when we get home we take her to Urgent Care and they take an x-ray. Of course it shows that her fifth metacarpal bone (that’s the bone that connects your wrist to the knuckle of your pinkie) is splintered a little. They say it’s not a bad break and no damage was done by waiting but I still feel HORR-I-BLE. How could I ever make it up to her? Would she ever forgive me? Of course. She was over it as soon as they told her she’d need a cast and could choose the color she wanted. Now on Tuesday, April 19th, we have to take SuperChunk to Urgent Care for stitches. Why? Because, apparently when I put the dinner dishes in the sink one of the knives fell on the floor and I didn’t notice. And it’s not just any knife. It’s the one I sharpened to cut the tomatoes with. It’s sharp enough to to slice a tomato without effort. Imagine what that could do to a finger. So of course while I’m on the computer she finds it and uses it. Of course she doesn’t cut the furniture, she cuts her finger. On purpose. (I know a 2 1/2 year old can’t really cut herself on purpose, but let me explain.) She takes the knife and goes over by the front door and sits down. The next thing I know she lets out a VERY loud cry of pain. How I knew it was a cry of pain and not something else was just the momy in me. I get up thinking she closed the front, or maybe the closet door, on her finger. No such luck. All I see is blood. It’s all over her hand and legs. Then I see the knife. (Looking back I actually had to take it out of her hand.) I scoop her up and run down the hall to the bathroom. I put her on the counter and turn on the cold water. As I put her hand under the water to wash off her palm I’m thinking that she cut off the tip of her finger, there was that much blood. I wash off her palm and there’s no cut. So I turn her hand over, and sure enough there it is. A nice gash (as if a gash could actualy be considered nice) on the middle finger between the second and third knuckles. And it’s bleeding heavily. Of course, I know what to do. Put direct pressure on the wound to stop, or at least slow the bleeding. But finding what I wanted just wasn’t happening. I remember that I have eye make-up remover pads under the sink. They’re not “sterile” but at least they’re clean. So I put her on the toilet and wrap it around her little finger and tell her to hold it while I get sometihing else “to help [her] finger get better.” And she does. (Who knew a 2 1/2 year old could hold a bandage on a gushing gash?) I go in the hall to the linen closet to get a wash cloth. I get frustrated because I can’t find a dark one. I know it really isn’t that important, I’m not worried about a stain, but I NEED that dark wash cloth. Why? Because that’s what I was taught in my CPR/First Aid class I took in high school. (Always use a dark cloth, if possible, when working with children. It “hides” the blood which will keep them a little calmer.) There it is, hiding in the back. I check and make sure it’s folded in thirds, so there are more layers, as I take the five steps back to the bathroom. I put one side of it on each side of her hand, which is starting to shake. (Or maybe it’s just my habds that are shaking.) I put her hand against my chest and apply pressure as I run to the kitchen and call Shawn at work. Luckily the number is on the fridge, because I can’t remember what it is. And I wasn’t about to call the ceel phone and take a chance that he won’t answer it. Joe answers the phone and very loudly and shakily I tell him I need to talk to Shawn, it’s an emergency. Shawn gets on the phone and this is what he hears. “You need to come home now. We have to take SuperChunk to the hospital. She cut her fingers and needs stitches. Don’t worry about getting a speeding ticket, just get here.” He says ok and I hang up. I didn’t even give him a chance to ask questions. Then I call the school and tell them that Rapunzel needs to be in the office waiting for me in 15 minutes because I have to take the baby to the E.R. Then I call the pediatrician to see if I can gve her any tylenol to help with the pain. (It doesn’t even occur to me that it won’t help immediately.) They say yes and I hang up. Then I call Grandma. Why? Bbecause I’m shaking and scared and SuperChunk is still crying and I can’t calm her down. Sure enough, it helps. She tells me it’s not my fault, it’s not like I cut her finger. She also tells me to get myself a clean shirt, because the one I’m wearing is smeared with blood. Then she talks with SuperChunk and she stops crying. She rests her head on my shoulder and neck and breathes heavily. She tells me again that it’s not my fault, that this stuff happens. My response. “Not to my kids.” That’s exactly what I said. Like I had some super power to keep my kids from ever getting hurt. The call-waiting beeps and I tell her I have to go. Shawn is here. I run out to the car and hand him the baby so I can climb in the back seat first. (He even moved Rapunzel’s booster seat for me.) She’s happy to see him and tells him “owie help.” Because I already told her we’re going to take her to get her finger help and she’s just passing on the information. We take off and he starts to go the wrong way. Well, not exactly the wrong way. It was the right way to go the Urgent Care, but the wrong way to go to the school to get Rapunzel. Which luckily is only a minute from the house. We pick up Rapunzel,and she tells him to hurry, they have to sew SuperChunk’s finger back on. (Did I tell the school why we were going to the E.R. or did he tell her in the 10 seconds he was out of the car?) We arrive at the Urgent Care and I run/walk in. When they ask me what’s wrong I tell them, “she cut her finger with a steak knife and she needs stitches but I might be wrong but I didn’t want to take my chances and she bled through 3 layers of wash cloth in less than five minutes.” (Yes, I said it just like that. Without stopping and in less than 30 seconds.) This is where I stop for today. I’ve now written the ending and the sever ate it and won’t give it back. So I will post it tomorrow. Plus the school nurse just called and I have to go get Rapunzel because she’s running a fever. Yey, a walk in the very cold rain.

Lost

Dried up, dried out, dusty, invisible, non-existent. That’s what it has become. Painful, irritating, annoying, angry, depressing. That’s what it is. Sleeping, hiding, lurking, looming, laughing. That’s what it’s doing. Will it ever reappear? Will it ever stop hurting? Will it ever wake up? Sometimes I wonder. Then there’s a shimmering, happy, blooming feeling. Is it back? It is. Phew. I thought it was lost forever. How long will it last? Not long enough. Slipping, sliding, fading, poof. There it goes again. Will the cycle ever end? I hope so, but I doubt it.