Ok, honestly, it's not a suture. But for lack of a better/cooler word, I'm sticking with "suture". Today was the first day one of our boys had to get put back together!
I got a call around 2pm today from James' school informing me that he was fine, but he had slipped on the play ground stairs and had a cut on his chin. The nurse said he needed to get it sutured or super-glued back together and to see a dr. I went and picked James up from the office, and I tell you what... what a trooper that kid is! He didn't cry at all (... yet) and was being so brave. Once I told him we needed to go to the dr's and get stitches, then the waterworks and hyperventilating came. Oops. I finally got him to calm down when I remembered Tangled was in our DVD player and put it on.
I called my dr's office what felt like a billion times, left a message for the nurse, talked to the appointment makers, and got zilch on if he could come in on or not. I love my kid's doctor office, but today they basically failed in my book. All I wanted to freaking know was if they could see him REAL quick to just put his chin back together. His school is pretty close to his dr's office, so I just stalked the phone line while in their parking lot. Since I couldn't get through, I decided to try our health insurance's nurse help line to see what I should do. I also called Urgent Care to see how long their wait was. The nurse was super helpful and said a 45-minute wait at Urgent Care is pretty good (didn't seem like it to me...) and said some other stuff about taking care of the cut.
In the end, I decided to try a walk-in clinic to see if they were less busy (aka less sick-hurt people!). There was NO wait there and were able to see James right away. The poor kid was trying so hard to keep it together, even though he knew he might get stitches. The doctor was super awesome with the boys and explained things great to James. James was super mellow (totally unlike him) but he listened really well and promised to not touch his super band-aids later. The doctor said that he wasn't going to need to do stitches (phew) but he was going to put some super-tape on and then glue the cut closed so it could heal. James cried a bit when they cleaned the wound up and when the doctor had to push the cut closed. But, really, he did amazing. The doctor than let him choose a red or blue camoflauge band-aid to cover the cut and tape. Red won :) Once James knew he was all put back together and we were leaving, he was back to his chatty self. We then got him a Happy Meal for lunch and we all got a sundae too. Heck, when you cut yourself and have to see the doctor, you better believe you are getting a special treat after.
Now James says it was his lucky day (he got a Happy Meal, it's a good day!) and he gets a cool scar out of it. He is super proud to be in my league of getting "cracked open". I've told him before the story of when I fell down a man-hole in the third grade and got stitches in the back of my head. He said, "Mom, you and me are the same now. Yours was a bit worse, but we've both been cracked open now. What the heck... this is so weird." It's pretty funny and dang cute.
There we have it- our first trip to the doctor for a cut or break. I cannot even say how grateful I am it wasn't worse. He hardly bled and it was a super clean cut. He could have cut himself worse or broken a bone... so grateful this was our first incident. Let's ease into the world of blood and broken bones. I am super surprised this is our first incident with three little boys. I for sure know there will be lots more in our future :) Just bound to happen!
