First ER Experience

The day started out so great. I was able to sleep in until 7:30, I cleaned my house a little, went to lunch with my wonderful sister-in-laws and motherand I was planning on making a couple of meals for our Delectable Dinners. I got home and started to make some rolls and while the dough was rising Spencer wanted to go look at some bikes for him to ride to work and get in shape. So we went out for an adventure, and it was just that. We went to the first store and no problems there, Clay was running around looking at the bikes, thank goodness the bikes are hooked in to a rake. He loves to turn the pedals around and around, that should have sent a red flag to me right there, but it didn't. We saw some great bikes, but we wanted to check out the prices at another store. We walked in and the same thing, Clay turning the pedals around and around. Spencer and I left him for a second to look at a bike and than we heard a whimper, than a full out scream. We ran over and saw that Clay had caught his finger between the chain and the crank and the only way to get it out was to turn the pedal backwards to get his finger out. As we released the finger it immediately started to bleed out like a siv. Spencer said we need to go to the ER, but I wanted to look at it first, so we asked for a bathroom to wash up and it just kept bleeding and bleeding I could see that there was tissue coming out of the cut, so yes we went to the ER, which we were down the street from Utah Valley Hospital. I felt bad leaving the store with blood trails all over, Spencer did clean up the bathroom though. We walked in the ER and I went up to the desk and was trying to tell her what happened, she was trying to ask my questions but with Clay screaming in my ear I couldn't hear anything. Spencer check him in and I was so pleased that they got us right in. Of course, Clay wouldn't let anyone touch him except me, so the nurse had a hard time getting his vitals. They took us back to get an X-ray to see if maybe he broke his finger, but fortunately he didn't. We were sitting in a triage room watching Toy Story, Clay had calmed down, except every time he looked at his finger he would start crying. The doctor came in to take a look. He cleaned it up and all you could see was tissue spewing out. He definitely needed stitches and he gave us two options on how we could handle Clay. One we could get three or four people in to hold him down while he stitches up, which would still be hard because you can still bend the finger while people are holding you down. Or they could give him a shot to put him out, than they could look at the wound better and do a better job sewing up and we wouldn't have a screaming child. Spencer and I looked at each other and finally said to put him under. They gave him a shot and he slowly relaxed and was still. They warned us that his eyes would still be open even though he would be "in another world". As they laid him down ever so gently I kept looking at him watching this helpless little boy and thinking how disturbing it was to see him like this. As I watched his eyes twitch and his mouth wide open, my stomach sank and my heart started pounding and I got emotional. Tears weld up in my eyes and I had to step away from him. I know it is so silly to get emotional just for 4 stitches, but I NEVER EVER want to see my child like that again. I can't imaging what it would be like to see your child go through dialysis or Chemotherapy. I composed myself and was fine after that. I watch the doctor try to put back together his finger and he did an excellent job, which was a difficult one, it wasn't just a straight line to sew. It took about 45 minutes after for the nurse to say that we could go. Over all I was glad we put him out for it because the cut was worse than the doctor had originally thought and he probably wouldn't have done as good of a job.

We made it through an eventful evening, after 3 1/2 hours in triage we were ready to go home and relax. Clay was a champ and did pretty well for a 2 year old. I hope he will think twice before turning the pedal on a bike again...who am I kidding though.