From baptism to the ER

My wife, Jenny and I knew the day would come when our risk-tasking second child, Mason, would push, jump or ram his way into an ER visit. He is a child that is always on the move. Heck, before Mason turned two years old he had proudly displayed three different black eyes. 

What we didn’t expect was that it would happen at a church following a baptism. The baptism had gone very well. My sister-in-law’s second child was very calm and never cried during his baptism. By the time the ceremony was over, Mason was ready to have some fun. His time limit for sitting still is close to 20 minutes and we had exceeded that. I took him to the entry of the church where he was joined by a group of cousins ages six, five, four, three, and two. Mason is three and he and his cousins were having a great time in the church entry chasing each other and playing “switch chairs” among the seating arrangement of a couch and two chairs. I had walked back upstairs to the main part of the church to offer the Deacon a ride to the baptismal meal when Jenny turned her head to speak to her sister and a mere three feet away Mason was inadvertently bumped against the entry door. 

We believe his laceration actually came from the steel edge surrounding the glass, but regardless, a person forgets how much a head wound bleeds. By the time I was called to the scene, Jenny had raced our son to a downstairs bathroom and was applying pressure while trying to calm him down. We couldn’t find enough paper towels and I was sent out in search of some cloth that we use to slow the bleeding. The scene looked onerous – my son was crying so hard he was nearly throwing up, my wife’s white coat was covered in blood and a melee of relatives hovered anxiously. Fortunately, another sister-in-law was on hand who has a like-minded second child (i.e. risk taker) and was able to help us keep Mason under control. She also recommended we take him to the ER for an evaluation. 

Our little guy is not a fan of the doctor’s office after a number of “hold him down” visits to the ENT doctor. On the way to the ER he kept saying “I feel better, I feel better”. Jenny assured him we just had to check with the doctor before we could go play more. By the time we got to the entrance of the ER, he had settled down. The on-call nurse said it would be a short wait so I tried to distract Mason from the obvious emergency. I pointed out unique things in the back offices and we spent some time looking out the window. In 10 minutes, the emergency doctor was there and offering us options.

Option one was to glue the wound, option two was to do stitches. We choose number two, because Mason’s high motor always has him moving around and we were worried he’d pick at the cut.

The hardest part was next, while Mason was laying on the bed the doctor had to give two small shots to numb the area. Jenny and I each held on to two limbs as the doctor quickly went about his business. Needless to say, Mason wasn’t fond of the shots.

A short time later he had to lay on the table with a cloth over his face for the four-stiches. I spent most of the time under the cloth trying to distract Mason with random thoughts. He was definitely relieved when the process was over and he received not one, but three stickers from the nurse. He even managed to say ‘thank you’ to the doctor.

Our 30-minute stay in the hospital was over and in a short time we were at the post-baptism party. Mason, being the rambunctious child he is, went right to playing upstairs with the rest of the children.

His first and, hopefully, last trip to the ER was over and he had moved on. Fortunately, Jenny and I have, too.