The Emergency Room

Life is full of a million little mundane tasks, inconsequential and uneventful, but each with the potential to turn to disaster in a split second. Being a rather accident-prone person, I am well aware of the potential pitfalls of everyday life. I racked up quite a number of ER visits as a child and had my fair share of stitches (3 sets) and broken bones (2, not including toes). Since becoming a mother, I have been dreading my first ER trip with a child. I knew it was inevitable. I knew it would happen. But you still never expect it and it's still a little bit traumatizing. (Though apparently more for me than for Zara.)

On Monday afternoon, Zara and I went to the grocery store--as we often do, Zara loves to go shopping--to purchase supplies for the week's meals. We got back around 3pm. Zara went upstairs to take off her shoes, while I went into the kitchen to unload the spoils of war. Then Zara was downstairs talking about how she wanting some animal crackers (which are kept in our room upstairs). I told her to get a bowl and take it upstairs to ask Daddy for some crackers since David was in our room. My sister came into the kitchen as I continued to unload the groceries and we discussed dinner for the night and our plans for meals for the week (being that we switch off cooking and we have 3 birthdays to celebrate this week).

I heard the door close upstairs and the sound of Zara walking down the stairs. I thought nothing of it and continued my conversation until the most awful, horrible sound you can hear interrupted us--the heavily thud of something small and precious tumbling down the hardwood stairs. Cassy and I rushed to the foot of the stairs and David sprang out of our room above to find Zara sprawled in a sea of broken animal crackers, with blood gushing down her face from a cut above her eye.

Zara was still wearing her socks and carrying a plastic bowl of animal crackers when she tripped. Since none of us saw the actual event happen, we can only assume that she slipped on one of the stairs (from the length of time it took her to fall, I think she fell from the middle of the staircase) and went tumbling down. We're not sure if she cut her eye on one of the stairs or perhaps from the impact of the bowl hitting her eye as she tumbled down.

Cassy and David performed triage while I busied myself with cleaning up the animal crackers. I'm a little bit squeamish around blood. It's a wonder I've been able to have children. They checked her over and determined that the cut was the extent of her injuries but the gash was too deep to be dealt with at home. We'd have to go to the ER.

When you never need urgent care, you don't really think of what to do in case of an emergency. We don't have a doctor here--in fact, we just canceled our insurance last week because we could no longer afford it--and we weren't sure where to go or what to do. We finally decided to just got to the nearest hospital down the street and hope we could somehow find the money to pay for an ER visit out of pocket. (No bill yet so that remains to be seen.) We left Adelaide with Cassy and sped away to Riverside Hospital, with Zara laying down in the backseat, with David popping up her legs.

Thankfully, ER staffs tend to take sick and injured children very seriously, so we were able to go straight back to a room without waiting. We were first taken to a small exam room where two nurses checked over Zara and got information about the accident. They then went to consult with some doctors and prepare an actual ER room for us.

Meanwhile, we tried to keep Zara still but awake. David played her videos on his phone or we played games on the Kindle.  She was obviously growing tired and wanted to fall asleep. About 30 minutes after arriving, we were shown back to an actual ER room where the doctor finally came to see us. She examined the wound and left to get the suturing kit she'd need to stitch the brow back together.

In situations like these, it always feels like time stands still. It felt like we waited forever in between each visit of a nurse or the doctor, but it only took about an hour and a half from the time we walked into the door until we left. Shortly after the doctor left, a nurse arrived to help us prep Zara for her stitches. She cleaned the wound and applied a gel to help numb the area. We wrapped Zara up in blankets in order to keep her still.

The doctor re-appeared and gave Zara a shot of lidocaine to fully numb the eye. This was the only point at which Zara really cried out, except for when she first fell. Otherwise, she had been silent and watchful, though obviously scared and in a little bit of shock. Once the area was numb, the doctor quickly put in three stitches while the nurse, David, and I held Zara down.

We cleaned her up, applied and band-aid and were sent on our way with instructions to return on Saturday to have the stitches removed. (What a nice birthday gift!)

It could have been so much worse. I know that. We're glad it wasn't worse and that she only needed 3 stitches. Vainly, I hope it doesn't leave too much of a scar, but I'm sure it won't be the last.