and the beat goes on

Our big plans for today: I'm taking the younger six to a parade and to visit my grandparents. Linnea is going to drive Paco and the buggy in the parade. We'll leave shortly after dinner.

Hopefully, it will be less eventful than yesterday. Another ER visit!!! I was changing Ruby's diaper when Andrew said, "Mom?? I got a cut...."

Knowing that he gets a little dramatic, I was thinking paper cut or something. Also knowing that he gets woozy, I wanted him to sit down. I told him to get in the bathroom and sit on the floor.

I stepped back from the changing table to peek across the hall at him and saw blood ALL over the bathroom floor!! Yikes and double yikes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I promptly set Ruby on the floor and ran to get towels. I was not quite in panic mode, but I'll tell you I was close. I was envisioning severed fingers...who knows.

I wrapped a towel around his hand and tried to get the story of what happened. Well, on toy guns they put a bright orange cap/tip on the end--so you know it's a fake gun, I guess.

Dennis and Uncle Aaron have helped them remove these caps on most of their other guns and Andrew decided he would use his pocket knife to take this one off by himself.

The knife slipped and it jabbed into his hand, at the V between the thumb and pointer finger.

When I tried to pull back the towel to peek at the wound, blood spurted out. As I took a look around at all the blood from the bathroom to the hallway--it even got Elijah who was standing in the hallway as Andrew passed by him---I realized that with each pulse of his heart, the hole was spurting.

Is this too much information????????????????????

So, I was putting pressure on the spot, and each time I would look to see if it had stopped bleeding I could see right away that it had not.

I had sent Christopher out to get Dennis who had not answered when I called his phone.
Yay for Bipper! He went right out and found him.

In the meantime, I called my mom for her opinion. She said we needed to go to ER right away. By this time, I had been putting hard pressure on the spot for a full five minutes and it wouldn't quit bleeding. She said he must have hit a big vein...get in right now.

That kind of freaked me out, since she is usually more like "well..........it wouldn't hurt to get it checked out......"

Dennis came in, saw all the blood everywhere and agreed with her advice. =)

We headed for the hospital with Ivy and Andrew.

On the way, it stopped bleeding but we kept going, so we could have them check for tendon damage, etc.

At the hospital, they, of course, asked what happened.
I cringed as Andrew began:
"Well, there's this thing on my pistol...and I was using my knife..."

I asked if they had to document that he was playing with guns and knives.....

Long story short: he's fine. Missed everything important. He now has a first-hand knowledge of what can happen when you mis-use your pocketknife.

They put him on an antibiotic and gave him a tetanus shot.

Whew!

When we got back home, Dennis said, "I can see the crime scene is still here." I had told the children I would clean it up when we got back.

I had these moments while cleaning up (the whole time, really) about how differently things could have gone. That could have been life changing.

I talked about the whole deal with the children over supper...talking through how they could've handled that had I not been home when it happened.

Seriously, they probably should have called 911 because I don't think they would have gotten the bleeding stopped without some advice. I told them that the person would mostly likely have talked them through how to put pressure on it, etc.

Scary.

Sometimes I think--will they all make it to adulthood????

Well. That was yesterday. Today is new day. Hopefully not as dramatic!