Yesterday, as I rushed down the stairs from the office on my way home from work, my phone rang. It was from home. I answered, ready to say, "Yes, I'm on my way home now" but I heard a muffled voice, barely rising above screaming in the background, say, "Luke cut his head badly and he's bleeding a lot. mmrmph ummmph rrr ..."
Ella doesn't do so well with telephones; she sometimes forgets to hold the microphone near her mouth. Apparently Kim had asked her to call me while she took care of Luke. Probably the incomprehensible bit at the end was something like "We are getting into the car to go to the hospital" but I had to ask for her to repeat herself a few times.
It was half a minute before I realized that I was talking to Kim, not Ella. I never knew before that Ella's voice is like Kim's! She was telling me that she couldn't tell whether he cut himself badly enough that we should take him in to let a professional take a look. Meanwhile, Luke calmed down, in less than a minute, the bleeding stopped, and Kim said that the cut looked like it was about an eighth of an inch wide. In any case, she didn't want to shave off any hair to bandage it.
When I arrived at home, Luke was happily and ravenously eating supper. After I looked at his head with a flashlight, I decided to take him to a nearby urgent care facility. He was not bleeding and not acting concussed, so the ER was not necessary, but I wanted someone else to look at the cut. I let him take a few minutes to finish dinner and wolfed down some dinner myself.
Luke was very brave; very little fussing though it hurt when they cleaned the wound. It wasn't until they cleaned it that it became clear that he had a deep cut over 1cm long. They put an anesthetic gel on his head for 20 minutes, then used three staples to close the wound. Even with the anesthetic, the staples clearly hurt, but Luke was still brave, and seconds after the last staple was inserted, he was his usual cheerful self, though rather tired since it was now well past his normal bedtime.
He was quite pleased when I told him that when he grows up, he'll be able to tell people that he had three staples when he was three years old.
It took us some time to find out what had happened in the first place. Kim asked, "Luke, what did you hit?" He clearly thought this was a silly question; "My head!" ("duh, Mom!") Later, he showed me that he had fallen against a piece of wood trim while engaging in a prohibited activity: sliding on a pillow in order to slide faster. Thrill-seeking: it starts early.
Ella doesn't do so well with telephones; she sometimes forgets to hold the microphone near her mouth. Apparently Kim had asked her to call me while she took care of Luke. Probably the incomprehensible bit at the end was something like "We are getting into the car to go to the hospital" but I had to ask for her to repeat herself a few times.
It was half a minute before I realized that I was talking to Kim, not Ella. I never knew before that Ella's voice is like Kim's! She was telling me that she couldn't tell whether he cut himself badly enough that we should take him in to let a professional take a look. Meanwhile, Luke calmed down, in less than a minute, the bleeding stopped, and Kim said that the cut looked like it was about an eighth of an inch wide. In any case, she didn't want to shave off any hair to bandage it.
When I arrived at home, Luke was happily and ravenously eating supper. After I looked at his head with a flashlight, I decided to take him to a nearby urgent care facility. He was not bleeding and not acting concussed, so the ER was not necessary, but I wanted someone else to look at the cut. I let him take a few minutes to finish dinner and wolfed down some dinner myself.
Luke was very brave; very little fussing though it hurt when they cleaned the wound. It wasn't until they cleaned it that it became clear that he had a deep cut over 1cm long. They put an anesthetic gel on his head for 20 minutes, then used three staples to close the wound. Even with the anesthetic, the staples clearly hurt, but Luke was still brave, and seconds after the last staple was inserted, he was his usual cheerful self, though rather tired since it was now well past his normal bedtime.
He was quite pleased when I told him that when he grows up, he'll be able to tell people that he had three staples when he was three years old.
It took us some time to find out what had happened in the first place. Kim asked, "Luke, what did you hit?" He clearly thought this was a silly question; "My head!" ("duh, Mom!") Later, he showed me that he had fallen against a piece of wood trim while engaging in a prohibited activity: sliding on a pillow in order to slide faster. Thrill-seeking: it starts early.
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