Tuesday, November 18, 2008

spiderman thumb

at 2:00 PM on halloween afternoon, spencer sliced his thumb and had to get stitches. the boy is only 3 1/2 years old and he has been to the er TWICE for stitches.
i was dozing on the couch when suddenly spencer comes running in with an opened can attached to his right thumb. he had gotten into the recycling bin and found the one can that still had the lid attached by a thread. he had his thumb wedged between the sharp lid and the wall of the can. so i basically had to tear his thumb out of the can, which sliced it up badly with the sharp yet jagged can lid edge.
once the can was removed he began to run about the house, shaking his thumb wildly and producing all kinds of blood splatter. i guess he was really unsatisfied with the amount of halloween decorating we had done. by the time i got him settled, there was blood all over the kitchen. I had to pin him down to get any sort of pressure on the wound, and he is incredibly strong.
by the time we got to the er, he had calmed down significantly and was holding his arm up in the air (i told him it would help stop the bleeding). then the doctor came in and all heck broke loose once again. we had to wrap him in one of those papoose things. then, even with the papoose, it took the nurse, doctor, and myself holding him down to get two of the "least sterile sutures" (doctor's words) in his little thumb.
they sent us home with some antibiotics. 10 days later, we had to go back to take them out, which was just about AS dramatic as getting them in. thus, the spiderman thumb (we called it that to make it cool) saga ends.

5 comments:

Lisa said...

Poor Spencer!

Please tell me why I am not acquainted with these papoose things. I have had to hold Brendan down TWICE for stitches. Once when he was two for stitches in his head and about a month ago for his thumb (he sliced it on a retracting measuring tape that of course we had told him 100 times not to play with but he did anyway). On both trips to the urgent care, the nurses needed my help to pin him down. By the end of the stitches, he and I were both sweaty from the struggle. I think I am going to buy my own papoose thing for the next time it happens. Because he is only five. He's got a lot of trouble still in him.

The Fossetts said...

Im so sorry!

Your details made me feel bad for him even more. Very well written, it made me think I was watching it myself. But I just think about how you must have felt! Im so sorry! Im glad he's better with his spiderman thumb haha.

Janna said...

Glad he's all better. I love that kid.

Emily Petty said...

Wow Spencer has been having lots of adventures! Poor kid. I like your family picture at the top of the blog.

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