Off we go again

Wednesday, 12 April 2006

Today for lunch Emily and Sam had peanut butter and honey sandwiches and a huge bowl of strawberries. After cutting up half the carton of strawberries and making sure everyone was settled, happily eating their lunch, I went to respond to a quick email before loading everyone in the car for the preschool run. I might have been in front of the computer 60 second before hearing Samuel scream, and come running into the front room with blood dripping down his hand.

Turns out he and Emily inhaled the strawberries and he decided he could cut them up himself. Our new kitchen knives were no match for his little finger.

(This picture is terribly out of focus and a bit misleading but it's all I've got. We took two pictures, and they both turned out this way ... the cut was straight and very clean and was about 3/4" long.)

It's 11:50... 40 minutes before preschool starts. I get Sam's finger cleaned up, asses that it's not going to stop bleeding for a while, wrap a wash cloth around the finger, make a phone call to a friend in our neighborhood who also goes to preschool in the afternoon who might be able to give Emily a ride (she's not home, leave an odd disjointed message), and discover Sam has a poopie diaper. Use a large claw clip to hold the washcloth around Sam's finger and apply light pressure, but won't cut off circulation, and change his diaper, and call another Mom who lives up the street and whose daughter also attends preschool with Emily - she's able to take Emily to school, I call GR get his cell phone and warn him we're coming, and off we go.

We get to the ER about 12:30 where GR meets us. They aren't quiet as fast this time, but we still get seen within 10 minutes. Sam won't let anyone, including GR look at his cut. I finally get the wash cloth off his finger (everyone was rather impressed with the claw clip solution to applying pressure and keeping the wound covered) so the nurse and the doctor could look at it. It's stopped bleeding, but he still isn't keen about anyone touching it.

GR and I learn that finger tips don't have much blood circulation, so they don't use numbing agents when dealing with cuts on the fingertip. Numbing of the area could cause permanent damage to the finger tip because it reduces the circulation of blood to the area. Instead of stitches, they glued the cut closed with Derma bond, put two Band-Aids on it to keep Sam from bending his finger, give him a green popsicle for being brave and off we went to race back home to pick Emily up from school. (Thankfully, Wednesday's are Rebecca's afternoon with Grandma, so I didn't have to worry about who was going to pick her up!)


"Strawberry Cut" update:
Sam will still tell you how he got his scar, which has healed very nicely. And he will also tell you that he isn't supposed to cut strawberries by himself, that's Mommy's job. And we haven't had any major injuries since, knock on wood!