A Very Bad Start to a Long Weekend!

After work Friday, January 14, started off as a regular start to a weekend. I came home and I played with my little girl. My plans were to get in a quick trip to the grocery store before Daddy got home to get a head start on my weekend duties. Unfortunately grocery shopping would have been more fun then the way the night turned out. Ayla and I were playing "Bear". "Bear" is a game that has evolved over the last year or so. It starts out with Ayla yelling "Bear!" and pointing at me, at which point I become a bear and chase her around. We have played this hundreds of times with never an injury or even tears. Not so lucky this time. The game started in the living room and somehow ended up in my bedroom. Ayla loves to play on our King Size bed, to her it is just a large soft play area. She was crawling around on my bed and I was crawling around the bed on the floor. I was growling and she was screecing in delight and trying to stay away from where she thought the "bear" was going to "attack". At one point I jumped up and growled and she took off crawling to get away and crawled hard headfirst into a shelf we have on our headboard. She immediately started screaming and crying, I could tell it had been a hard hit but I wasn't prepared for what I found. When I got to her and picked her up blood was streaming down her face. A lot of blood. Luckily my mother-in-law was still at our house. Dad hadn't come to pick her up yet. I yelled "Mom, I need some help!" And carried Ayla out to the kitchen, by this time blood was dripping off of her and me and all over the floor and our clothes. Mom grabbed a towel and I held Ayla on my lap and tried to stop the blood. I asked her "Do you think I should call 911?" She wasn't as panicked (yet) as me so she said "Let's hold off and we'll see if we can get it stopped on our own and then we'll drive her to the emergency room." Ten minutes later both Mom and I had tried stopping the blood and she was still bleeding, at this point Mom didn't know what to do either. I said "Come on, let's go" and ran out to the car with Ayla, completely forgetting her shoes, and a coat. Luckily Mom grabbed all those things and diapers and wipes and we headed to the hospital. Mom drove and I sat in the back holding Ayla on my lap while trying to stop the bleeding. At some point Lucas ( who I had been trying to get a hold of) called and I answered the phone to talk to him. This is when I started crying, I hadn't been too bad up until I talked to him but when I was trying to explain to him what happened I started crying. This was not the right thing to do, it made Ayla more upset. I had gotten her calmed down but when I started crying she took one look at my tears said "Mommy" and started crying again. I managed to get myself under control and get the bleeding slowed down enough that I thought the best place for Ayla was in her car seat. I put her in her car seat and put her shoes on her. At one point she looked over at me and said "Sing Mommy?" I knew then that she was going to be okay. So we sang "Popcorn popping", and "5 Little Monkey's Jumping on the Bed" (which seemed appropriate) while we drove to the hospital. It took about 10-15 minutes to get there. Once we got there we only waited 5 minutes or so and then were taken back to what they call triage. They put a bandage on Ayla's head to get the blood that was still seeping to stop and then asked us a million questions. I guess they were checking to make sure that Ayla isn't abused. Apparently satisified with the answers that I gave they left us alone to wait for the doctor and wait we did, and wait, and wait. Luckily I had enough presence of mind to request that Lucas stop at home on his way to the hospital and grab something for us to drink and Ayla's portable DVD player and her "Elmo in Grouchland' movie. Once we had some juice and the movie we were okay waiting. Once the doctor or should I say physician's assistant came in he told us he would have to get her numb and then put the stitches in. They tried holding her down at first to get her numb, this didn't work, she is very strong. So they had to bring in a papoose board which is essentially a board that they laid her on and tied her to. There was a picture of a baby on the board that Ayla kept talking about the whole time through her tears and screams. They gave her a shot of lidocaine right in the wound which had to have hurt and that was really hard to watch. Then they waited a few minutes for the numbness to kick in and then stitched her up. The whole process took a little less than 10 minutes but was very traumatic for both Ayla and I. She was screaming, crying, fighting, sweating, geting all red in the face, and kept yelling "Mommy, Daddy". I held her hand and tried to be strong and not show my emotions so that she wouldn't get more upset. We were all very happy when it was over and they untied her. The poor thing was completely soaked with sweat from head to toe from fighting so hard. We then had to wait for the paperwork. Naievely we started packing up everything and put away the movie thinking that meant we'd be leaving soon. Oh no, we waited at least another hour before they finally brought us our discharge papers, gave some instructions, and sent us on our way. We got to the hospital at 6:00 and left after 9:00. I guess that's what to be expected. All in all I know it really isn't a big deal, there are a ton of worse things that happen all the time. But in our little world and to me and my little girl this was a pretty big deal and something I don't want to experience again. (At least not soon!) Hopefully this was not a warm-up as to what we can expect with our little boy. Here's some pictures of our ordeal.

Immediately after getting to the hospital after finally getting the bleeding stopped.

Waiting for the doctor


Still waiting for the doctor but a little happier because now she has a lollipop

Daddy came and brought her movie to watch while we continued to wait for the doctor. She loved the gloves and wouldn't take them off. The nurses joked that she looked like she was sick of waiting and ready to stitch herself up.

Immediately after the stitches were put in

Waiting for paperwork, notice she's still wearing the gloves

Daddy needed a good cuddle after the traumatic night

So happy to be home and showered and have all that yucky blood off of us. (Yes I was covered in blood too, but didn't realize it until the ER nurse asked me if I was hurt.)

Still a ham even after her hard night

Cuddling with Mommy on the bed before drifting off to sleep. Mommy left the bandage off for a little while to let the boo boo get some air, but we did eventually bandage it back up again.

We had the stitches taken out last night. That went fine, wasn't a big deal. The doctor put on some steri-strips which are basically like small little bandaids that help to keep the wound closed while it heals. He said to leave them there as long as they will stay which he thinks should be about two weeks. He said that this will aid in the healing process and keep the area nice and strong while it heals. After that I have to make sure she always has sun block on in that area and I bought some Mederma (scar repair cream) that I'm going to try on her in the hopes that I can minimize the scar.