Stitches

The day we brought the Little Miss home from the hospital, exactly 24 hours after delivery, daddy and not-quite-2-year-old-Cole were playing and bouncing on our bed. Meanwhile, I was on the couch involved in one of many marathon nursing sessions. A few minutes after the play began, I heard a thump and much crying from the little boy. When daddy carried him out, blood was pouring from his head.

Grandma and Daddy loaded him up, took him to the ER, and brought him home with 3 staples in his head. I stayed on the couch with the 24 hour old baby and cried my eyes out.

8 years have passed since then and except for routine doctor appointments and one scheduled tubes/adnenoid surgery, Cole has needed little medical care.

And then this happened.


Cole and daddy were on the farm early in the day, gearing up for a long day of harvest. The last day of harvest for the year. They were making feed for the cattle, as most mornings begin. Daddy was scooping ground corn to put into the feed mixer. Unfortunately, Cole leaned in to get a scoop just as Daddy was lifting his shovel up.

Forehead? Meet shovel.

When Daddy raced up the road in the truck, carrying a crying Cole through the door, I assumed he had gotten in trouble and was being dropped off. (You see, spending time with mommy on the weekend is the worst punishment he can receive.) Imagine my surprise when he turned around and his entire face was covered in blood!

After an initial gasp, I took him into the bathroom and cleaned him up. The gash was small but pretty deep. I took him into urgent care, blood all over his coat, his lips blue from the children's Advil I gave him on the way.


Several numbing shots (OUCH!) and 2 stitches later, we were on our way to the local farm supply store for a new John Deere combine toy for my very brave boy.


He's excited to show off his war wounds at school tomorrow. And I am very relieved it wasn't any worse!

I spent the night in the emergency room and all I got were these lousy bruises

The first week of my summer vacation did not exactly start as planned. Sunday night I started having major pain in my lower abdomen. It felt as though my uterus was falling out of my body while at the same time, someone was shoving a pipe up my rectum.

Was that too much information?

It brought me to my knees and I commenced to writhing on the floor in a sweaty, sobbing heap of misery. We called my mom, she got in the car, and started the 30 minute drive. I decided I couldn't wait 30 minutes and had my husband's cousin come sit at the house with the sleeping children while my hubby drove me to the ER.

We arrived at the ER at 10:30 Sunday night. We had a lovely nurse who informed me I had "small vein syndrome." She messed and messed and declared my veins too small to work with. (I found it ironic that the ONLY small thing on my body is my veins. Hmpf.) After 2 failed attempts at starting an IV, another nurse came in and finally got one started.

Hello, morphine.

When I finally calmed down, the nice doctor came in and pushed on my abdomen, asking if it hurt. I am pretty sure when I grunted, yelled, and pushed his arm away, he knew the answer.

After an x-ray, regular CT scan, downing 3 huge bottles of contrasting liquid, another CT scan, and multiple trips to the restroom, I was finally dismissed at 5:30 a.m. with the diagnosis of a ruptured ovarian cyst.

I didn't get much sleep, obviously. But at least I had a hospital bed/cart. My poor hubby sat on a chair with his head against a metal filing cabinet for the 7 hour visit. Luckily we were able to get home and get in a couple hours of sleep before the kids woke up.

I am still sore and have such a bloated, heavy, full stomach. Cole was so sweet when he first woke up, announcing he would do everything for me today. The second thing I asked him to do for me?

"Why do I have to do everything around here?!"

Back to reality. I have a feeling it's going to be a l-o-n-g summer.