Britton's first (and hopefully last) trip to the ER

 

I was once in an office speaking to a women, or should I say trying to have a conversation with a women, but I could hardly complete a sentence before having to reign Britton back in the office, pull him off whatever structure he was trying to climb, or take away whatever object he was about to throw. The women commented that I have an active son. After leaving the office several times to retrieve Britton from his escape attempts, the women said to me, "You have a VERY active son." I believe she was trying to politely tell me that my two year old is out of control. I was not offended because I know it is true. While I am very grateful that Britton has yet to throw huge tantrums in public or attack other children as I have seen other toddlers do in public, I feel that I am constantly chasing him and trying to keep my fearless son alive. So as a mother of a VERY active two year old, I am amazed that there have not been previous trips to the Emergency Room from his attempts to jump down stairs, climb on counters, jump off couches, climb on dressers despite my constant attempts to stop or prevent these activities from happening. Britton loves to climb and jump and will use any object as a stool to climb onto something higher. I do find it ironic that his first trip to the Emergency Room was not caused by any of these activities - or at least from climbing on something he should not have climbed on.

We had just finished dinner and Britton was riding his push bike in the living room while I was washing dishes. Darren was helping a neighbor move and it was almost time for Britton to go to bed. Britton "fell" off his bike and wanted me to kiss his arm to make it feel better. As fearless as he is, he always wants a kiss even for the most minor falls or bumps, but that's what moms are for and I love it. We have a "bar" style counter that separates our kitchen from the living room with two stools at it that we using for eating. For some reason instead of coming around to the kitchen to receive his kiss, Britton decide to climb up on one of the stools. I could not reach him across the counter, and he is not allowed to climb on the counters, so I told him to climb down off the stool and come around to the kitchen. Britton started to climb down the stool "safely" just as we taught him to do; belly on the stool, holding on while lowering his feet to the rails at the bottom of the stool. He does this several times every day. As I'm watching him climb down, the stool tips backwards (he must have leaned his weight back), and he falls backward landing on the carpet (fortunately our apartment is mostly carpeted) but brings the stool with him. The stool's seat is rectangle shaped (unfortunately), so it got him pretty good in the forehead. I run out of the kitchen to find Britton crying/screaming in pain and fear (producing the worst sounding cry you can imagine) and covered in blood. I was terrified but reassured by the fact that he was conscious. Blood was everywhere, but luckily I was able to remember from my first aid training that head wounds bleed a lot so it probably looked worse than it really was. Despite this reassurance, I was still in panic mode and tried to dial Darren's number at least three times before successfully making the call. I told Darren to hurry home because Britton had split his head open. Darren reminded me to apply pressure, and he was home in less than two minutes. We carried Britton to the car. He was still crying a lot when we got in the car, but he stopped crying once we were driving and started pointing out cars, trees, and his "messy hands" that were covered in blood which was reassuring.

I dropped Darren and Britton off at the pediatric Emergency Room and parked the car. When I arrived at the ER, they were trying to take Britton's temperature. For some reason, we can never get a temperature read under his armpit so eventually they had to take a rectal temperature which he was not happy about. After checking in, Britton started playing catch with the icepack they had given him for his head. He was obviously feeling better. When the doctor came over, Britton started throwing the icepack back and forth with the doctor. The doctor discussed the options with us - stitches or glue. He recommended the stitches since Britton appeared to be a very active boy; he could already tell just by a few minutes in the same room. He also said the stitches would leave a less noticeable scar.

I think the worst part of the stitches was when they had to numb the area. They injected the needle several times to fully numb the area, and Britton had to be wrapped up in a sheet like a straight jacket. The children's specialist had an iPad and was able to distract Britton a little with Cars and Thomas the Train, but once the stitches began, Cars or Thomas weren't enough. Luckily, she also had the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Road Rally App on the iPad. Britton is obsessed with Mickey and loves this app - for the longest time it was the only children's app I had on my iPad. He had been wailing and squirming when they started stitching up his forehead, but once he heard Mickey's Clubhouse theme song, he stopped screaming and squirming. I was even able to get him to sing along. The doctors and nurses were so impressed how calm he was once he was able to watch Mickey's Clubhouse. Britton and I have the entire app memorized so I think it was not only distracting but comforting to have something familiar for him.

As soon as the stitches were over, Britton was back to his normal self. Running, jumping, and climbing as fearlessly as ever to our relief and dismay. I'm glad he was not traumatized by the experience but would love for him to be just a little more cautious. Most of all, I'm just glad that he's alive and only has four stitches. I love my little, VERY active boy.