July 4th, 2011 | Posted by acidicice

On Thursday afternoon I had a half day at work with Leebeesa and we furiously finished our abnormally high workload to leave the office. We were meant to leave at 12:00, but ended up walking out the office at 12:30, just as our network experienced a major transmission failure affecting cell phone communications nationwide. We were pretty happy to have missed it. As we hit the parking lot my phone rang. It was the day mother. She doesn’t usually call, I phoned her back immediately. She told me that Babyice had a cut on his head and that she thought he may need stitches. At this point we were almost by the car and Leebeesa let me drive (realizing I might drive faster than her under the circumstances). It was a little difficult driving her car since I wasn’t used to it and I think I flooded it at some point, but I floored it as much as I could when I could. At some point I really wished I had my 1600 (she has a 1300), but it got us there in record time anyway. I managed to place a call to Rudi to let him know I was on my way there. He was busy driving it Malmesbury, which is very much so in the opposite direction.

 
 

I did not expect what I saw when I walked in there. She had said on the phone ‘a big cut and might need stitches’…she did not create the expectation of finding this:

 
 

I nearly died. At this point they had pretty much cleaned up all the blood and calmed him down quite nicely (thank goodness!). While driving there, I had called the day mother again and instructed her to give him some Ponstal for pain and to put pressure on the cut to try and stop the bleeding (not realizing the extent of his injury as yet). I grabbed him and left immediately to take him to casualty at the local Medi-Cross. Leebeesa drove this time so that I could hold Babyice. I tearfully directed her, it's not too far from where the day mother is. She dropped me at the door and I rushed straight past reception to casualty (luckily I know the layout pretty well, have been going there for years). Our regular doctor wasn't there, so I chose the last doctor he saw in his place. They put a piece of cotton wool soaked in a liquid in the wound to deaden the skin in preparation for the stitches to go in:

 

It must have worked really quickly, because he was laughing and playing peek-a-boo within a few minutes. Leebeesa had gone off to the shop to buy him some cookies and came back with cookies and a toy (and cigarettes for me). The doctor asked me whether he had lost consciousness or vomited when it had happened (he hadn’t, but he did soil his nappy!) and whether he was able to walk and speak normally since the incident. The nurse wrapped him up in a towel and held his head while the doctor started putting the stitches in. I stood by his feet, holding them, but not looking at them stitching him up. He screamed the entire time. I tried to reassure him, but it was very difficult trying to talk to him over the screaming. By the end of it the nurse was singing Barney songs to him to try and calm/distract him.  4 stitches later, they bandaged him up to ensure that the steri-strips would stay on:

 

We were very fortunate. Fortunate that Leebeesa and I had a half day that day and that she was with me when I got the call. Rudi would have taken much longer to turn back and get to the car and then to the day mother than it took to get there straight from work with Leebeesa. She was also very supportive and encouraging the entire time. I couldn’t have planned the timing better even if I had known in advance! I was lucky that the day mother managed to reach me by phone, even though the networks were down. I couldn’t make calls or reach other people. After the initial call to Rudi I couldn’t reach him again at all. Leebeesa dropped me off at the day mother’s house after we had finished at the doctor’s office. Eventually I called Rudi from her landline to the work landline and left a message for him there telling him where to collect me. Thank goodness things happened the way that they did!

We took Babyice back to the doctor the next day, just to check that everything was still in place and looking good. We confirmed there were no signs of concussion as he was walking (read: running) around and driving us up the wall already. He didn’t even seem to need painkillers at all. Last night we had to remove the steri strips, clean the wound with salt water and put some back on. It was quite an ordeal. He was very unhappy, but we got through it (with some tears from mommy too).

Thank the good Lord that he is okay and that we were able to deal with everything so quickly. Thanks to Leebeesa for being there for us when we needed her. Thanks to Twitter and Facebook friends for their messages of support. No thanks to the bloody transmission failure that made things difficult for us!

According to the witnesses there, he was sitting in a door frame (metal) and leaned forward to get up at which point he bumped his head on the corner of the door frame, resulting in the injury. It was a complete accident, people were looking at him when it happened, so it isn’t a case of negligence (FYI). I hope this is the bloody worst of it! My poor heart!