the days are . . . shiny

I was going to try to make this funny. Maybe I still can. I don’t know. First off, everyone’s fine. I tend to the melodramatic anyway, and as a mother who has watched the skin on her child’s split head curl open like sneering lips, well, I don’t expect to have much control over that drama now. No. Frankly, I just want to write this to get it out of my head. Feel free not to read ahead if blood or injured children makes you queasy.

I feel no guilt. I wasn’t off chasing dreams when it happened. I’d just pulled Gabriel’s diaper off when Noah yelled. He’d hit the floor in the kitchen, taking a barstool with him. Usually that particular combination of sounds–thwack, smack, Aaah!–means that Noah’s pulled the chair down on purpose and maybe got bumped in the process. I didn’t jump up to see what was wrong. I looked around for the wipes. But then he yelled in a way I can’t describe except to say several prayers that he be alright rushed through my head. I found myself kneeling on the floor with him in my arms, my hand on the back of his head, my mind belatedly processing the visusl that he’d been inside the bottom of the barstool when I first looked at him.

I always grab the back of his head when he bumps it. I hold the boo boo. I assumed it was a bump until he squealed and jerked his head out of my hand. I realized my hand was wet. I could feel that his head was dripping on me. I thought, “Please, God, don’t let it be blood.” I looked at my hand. It was blood. I moved around to get a look at the back of Noah’s head. There was the cut, big drops of dark red cascading down his hair. I looked back at my red hand. I looked at the kitchen floor. How had I not noticed that there was blood splattered everywhere?

Noah kept crying, his mouth making that angry rectangle. I shouldn’t have met his eyes. I just scared him. I was completely panicked, searching for my phone. Noah clearly needed stitches. I needed to call Nathan. I needed help with Gabriel, who was still diaper-free on the living room floor. I tried calling Martha. She didn’t pick up. I was afraid of how I would sound if I left a message. I called her again a couple of times, even tried her cell phone. Bless her heart, when she realized it was me she called me back and later met us at the doctor’s office.

The doctor. I remembered to call our pediatrician. “My son busted his head. It looks like he’ll need stitches. Where should I take him?” They checked with Dr. Malone. Where did he want to meet us? Somewhere in there I found my cell phone. I’d been running frantically from room to room looking for it. I’d sent Nathan a text message saying come home now, but I wasn’t sure if he’d seen it. His number is long distance from my home phone. We aren’t set up for long distance. I called my own phone to find it. It was beside Noah who was sitting right where I left him crying, “Hurts! Hurts!”

I got Nathan on the phone. He tried to ask me questions. I told him I couldn’t talk. Really, I couldn’t. I was honestly afraid I might faint. There was all that blood on the kitchen floor. The cut on Noah head was still forming huge red drops that soaked the back of his shirt. I knew it was just a cut. I knew head wounds bleed a lot. I knew it wouldn’t need more than stitching. I’d busted my head when I was a tween, but every time I looked at him I was convinced I could see brain matter.

Gabriel still needed a diaper and by then had peed on himself. Noah yelled every time I came near him. I finally realized he was staring at my blood-coated hand and washed it off. I reminded Noah, who hadn’t moved from the kitchen floor, to “just stay there.” He didn’t seem dizzy, but I didn’t want a repeat fall.

It took me twenty minutes to gather what we needed to take to the doctor: the diaper bag, a dressed infant, my freaked out toddler, extra clothes for him, my prayer scarf so I wouldn’t miss Asr, Noah’s favorite blankey, an icepack and towel, and the sling. I also grabbed a book to read, which I think is probably the most telling item with regards to my state of mind. Except, perhaps, for the four pictures I took of Noah broken, crying and surrounded by his own blood. I remember thinking, “Before and after.”

Nathan pulled into the driveway just as I finished loading the boys into the Outlook. Thank God. There is no way I could have driven safely. I felt blurred and empty, like I had been hyperventilating. The car ride was short. I spent it fumbling with my cell phone trying to find someone who could come and hold G so I could be with Noah. That’s when Martha called and rushed over to meet us. She arrived moments after Noah was stapled back together and took Gabriel so I could kneel on the floor with my sweetheart. He wanted to have a hug and put his head on my shoulder. Those minutes where Nathan and I were able to focus just on Noah were invaluable. I think we all needed to know that the others were okay. And Noah needed that extra reassurance.

But let me backtrack. The nurses shuttled us through the office right away. Nathan and I fought Noah into a clean diaper–he’d pooped somewhere between the kitchen and the car. It turned out his bum hurt more than his head. The poop had made a rash. I went to throw the diaper out and Dr. Malone took it from me in the hallway. We both looked at my hand. There was more of Noah’s blood on it. He showed me to the bathroom where I closed the door and collected myself. I also managed to pray despite Noah screaming in the background. The prayer helped me recenter.

Back in the exam room (far, far away from the sick kids waiting in urgent care, one of whom Noah had frightened when he passed head agape and shirt sponging up his blood), I found that Noah had been wrapped around Nathan so that Nathan could hold him down while they cleaned and cared for his cut. Dr. Malone stood between me and Noah’s wound, asking if I had issues with blood and reminding me that I was holding a baby. I’m sure I was a sight. I just wanted to sit down and managed to get to the seat. Dr. Malone explained what would happen: they would irrigate the wound with a numbing solution, a bunch of stuff would come out of it, his head would start to numb and they would insert more numbing stuff around the broken skin. Then they would staple him up because the staples were okay to get wet.

Noah yelled and fought the whole time. What I have to say here is THANK GOD the cut was on the back of his head. THANK GOD he didn’t need stitches because there’s no way he could hold still. THANK GOD it wasn’t that nurse that we don’t like. THANK GOD I wasn’t alone to deal with this. And thank God that Gabriel is so chill. He took in all of Noah’s crying with not even a whimper. In the meantime, Noah alternately squeezed Nathan’s shirt and my hand. He shouted until he was red in the face that he didn’t want to get shots. “You’re not getting any shots,” the doctor and nurses and Nathan and myself told him as they gave him shots. Sometimes it’s best to lie.

“It’s over! Over! It’s over!” he kept screaming into Nathan’s chest.

“It’s almost over,” we said through the whole process.

We talked to him about the toys he would get for being so brave. He wanted a pink truck. We promised him ice cream. He bargained for hot chocolate. We also got him french fries and a toy in his Happy Meal. We would have promised the moon. As it is, we might go get him this construction truck set he melted down about yesterday afternoon at TJ Maxx. Nathan says it’s true that when you’re child gets hurt you’ll do whatever you can to make yourself feel better.

Because, truly, Noah feels fine. He knows there’s a boo boo on his head. He wouldn’t let us wash the blood out of his hair in the bath. He won’t let us touch his head, and he keeps reaching his hand back hesitantly, as if to make sure the back of his head is still there. He’s got a gooseegg on the front of his head the size of a, well, gooseegg. He’s got a black mark under his chin about and inch long. There are eight staples in his scalp closing a two inch gap. He keeps blinking his eyes against the swelling on his forehead. But that hasn’t really slowed him down.

Me? I’m still shaky. Writing this is helping. Writing has always been my therapy. But there is still blood under one of my fingernails from Noah’s head. And every time his swings that melon around, I cringe. If Noah stands next to me when I’m holding Gabriel, I keep thinking Gabriel has a cut on the back of his head, too. My stomach is in knots. I can only assume that Nathan feels similarly. After all, they stapled Noah’s head back together right in front of his eyes, literally. And then he came home and washed the kitchen floor because I simply couldn’t handle it. Eventually, the sight of Noah’s injury might fade from my mind. The question now is what to do with the pictures on my camera.

November 15th, 2008 | Tags: blood, injuries, staples | Category: Uncategorized | Subscribe to comments | Leave a comment | Trackback URL