Jessica's first experience with stitches

The scene of the crime



The result

The scene of the crime was the master bedroom at our apartment. The time was 7:30PM. The incident was Andrew cracking his head open to the point of needing his first set of stitches.

Why is this titled Jessica's first experience with stitches? That's simple. It's really all about me. Andrew was fine, minus the head wound.

The injury: We were hanging out in the bedroom for the last few minutes before bed (we were so close to making it through this day) and Andrew decided to mount our foot board like it was a horse. This is not the first, and probably not the last, time this happened. He quickly decided this wasn't nearly as exciting as he hoped so he tried to stand up on the foot board. This rapidly turned into an ugly situation as my 18 month old acrobat fell head first off the wrong side of the foot board. On his way down he clipped his head on a wooden chair that had been pulled out earlier in the day. I was up and to him before he even started crying. But by the time I had him to me he was screaming bloody murder into my shoulder. I couldn't get him to lift his head from my shoulder so that I could look at him, so I went over to Rusty to get some help. When Rusty pried Andrew's head from my neck there was blood running down his face.

The response: This is where the story transitions to me... I FREAKED OUT! I started saying, "I can't I can't I can't I can't" I was running to the kitchen for a towel and handing him to Rusty. I grab the dirty dish towel and try to hand it to Rusty to stop the bleeding. Rusty, the only one with a cool head, tells me and my bacteria covered towel to SIT DOWN. After I sit for a few seconds Rusty very calmly tells me to get a CLEAN warm rag so that we can clean him up enough to decide what to do next.
After Rusty had him cleaned decently well we thought that we probably would only need a butterfly band aid to hold the cut closed, but still needed to clean more. I ran over to the neighbors house to see if they had a band aid that we could use, and the man of the house came over to give Rusty a hand. When they got him cleaned enough to take a good look they both agreed that he was going to need stitches. At this point Andrew is cool as a cucumber, just hanging out in Rusty's lap like nothing happened. I was still so jacked on adrenaline that I could have sprinted the 10 miles to the emergency room.

The ER: After a reasonable wait in the lobby we were called back. Andrew is still acting like there's no big problem. He had been laughing and flirting with the ER receptionist the whole time we were waiting. When we get to the procedure room we see what is called a papoose. It has a backboard with Velcro straps coming off the sides. This contraption is obviously designed to keep the child as still as possible while having a needle and thread dragged through their face. This adorable little "papoose" has this adorable little Indian baby on it that is smiling like he's about to be smothered with kisses. That's not the way Andrew responded to it. Two nurses, a doctor, Rusty, and me get him into this torture device and the discontent begins. The nurses start cleaning his gash, which amps up the discontent to the next level. Then they shine a light, designed for a lighthouse, on a cloudy day, in the middle of a hurricane, into his eyes. Then they put a sheet over his face with a hole where the stitches are about to be placed. It must be at about this point that I do something that obviously disturbed the nurses because they start kindly suggesting that I sit my pregnant butt down. I reassured them that I was fine and preferred to stay with Andrew. They strongly disagreed and some five foot nothing, maybe a hundred pound, nurse came to dragged my five ten, heavier than her,self to the chair in the corner. They told me that they only needed one patient at a time.
So I got to, from the sidelines, watch as Andrew received a "numbing" shot, that no doubt hurt worse than the original injury. This is where the screaming, like I've never heard screaming, began. He cried the worst gut wrenching cry the entire time he was being given his four stitches. The nurses and Rusty had a real job to keep him still. I had to use all of my self-control to not stand up and be with him. It was the most awful thing I've ever experienced. I would do natural childbirth all over again rather than be a part of a one year olds stitches.
When it was finally over I got him in my arms as fast as I could to try and calm him down. It took a long time for the sobbing to stop. Rusty looked terrible and I asked him if he needed to hold Andrew and get some snuggles. He said that he did, so I handed him off to his daddy. I filled out our discharge paper work and received all our care instructions.

The ensuing night: We had to check on him every four hours to make sure that he didn't have a concussion, so I took the first shift, and Rusty took the second. I couldn't fall asleep to save my life, because I just kept replaying the horrible fall over and over and over again. Wondering why I hadn't gotten there faster. Why hadn't I pushed that chair back into the desk? What did I smoke while I was pregnant that made my child so crazy that he wanted to stand on the foot board at all? If I wasn't having these thoughts I was thinking that surely when I went in to wake him up he was going to have pulled out his stitches and there was going to be blood everywhere. "JESSICA, SHUSH!" this is what I kept telling myself.
When I went to check on him he was fine. When Rusty checked on him he was fine. This morning he was fine. He's still just fine. All the drama, and Andrew couldn't care less.

The conclusion: I, Jessica, feel exhausted from my first experience with stitches. I made it through my whole life without needing any. Ang, my sister, never needed any. God gives me two boys... wow.