This was my first time to an emergency room really in my life. I have never had anything major, and anything that I really ever had to be in the hospital for was minute and I was out in the same day. When we got there, which traffic downtown in the Med Center (terrible), we finally figured out where to park and how to get to the ER. I walked down the long corridor and they had us check in at a station where I had Cullen in umbrella stroller at this time. I filled out the paper work and about 20 minutes later our name was called. They took us to a back room where we able to get some initial vitals and have a nurse check the wound. I thought we were going to be in and out at this point only to find out that we were being triaged and that they were assessing us. We needed a stitch or two, but we weren't emergent so she gave me a 3-4 hour window before we would be seen, and told us that ever so wonderful line of "You can't eat food until after your seen." This would make the night worse. I headed out to the main lobby and was told that they would call us when they could see us. I overheard other people call out number of cases that were waiting to be called at 37. I figured that we would be here a while.
It didn't help that it was the first real cold spell that we had gotten since last winter so the waiting room was really cold, especially with the electronic door. I found a space for us to sit at and the next 3-4 hours you could find us:
- Pushing around the stroller trying to stay warm.
- Watching Netflix episodes on the iPhone but trying to not use too much of my battery which was at 47% when we came in.
- Looking at anything that had the alphabet in it and seeing if we could name the letters.
- Watch episodes of Spongebob Squarepants with a bunch of kids that obviously had flu.
However, the only thing we couldn't do was go anywhere near the food cart. I had to suppress my hunger, and distract Cullen at the same time. This was definitely a God thing.
Around 1:00am, a near 4 hours after we had been "triaged" we were called back. Bear in mind, I hadn't gone to the restroom in 12-13 hours myself but was needing to make a call. When I met the nurse that was getting us to our room, he offered to distract Cullen with some stickers (a great idea) while I found a restroom. When I came back he was sitting on a hospital bed, Cullen was in a full on sticker and coloring mode. He had no recollection of splitting his chin at that moment. He was euphoric.
The nurse took some information, created a timeline our events that night and then gave us our marching orders of waiting until the ER doc could come over. This was about 1:30 and by that time my iPhone was dead. I had no way of getting ahold of Corrie and had to make the decision on my own for my baby. That was definitely a "big boy" moment for me.
About 2 hours later, with Cullen resisting wanting to walk around, pick at his chin, or trying to eat anything we finally saw another nurse who took his vital. The actual doctor came in about 3:45am and looked at the chin and said "Ah, we can put some glue on it and that should work." I advocated for my child in that the Nite Light Pediatric doctor had told me that it was in a tricky enough spot that she thought it needed stitches. She didn't seem to think that this was the case and said that they would come back and do the glue in a bit. I was a little dumbfounded, but hey I only went to school for 6 years.
About 30 minutes later, around 4:15am the doctor came in and said "Looking at it again, I think we might go ahead and do the stitches." Thanks Doc!
They gave Cullen an anesthesial liquid that was supposed to knock any child out so that they can do the procedure about 15 minutes later. My child decided he was hulk and was going to stay awake but be super loopy (which at 4:45-5:00am in the morning was frickin hilarious). They also cleaned the wound with some liquid pump saline which Cullen being so hungry at that time was trying to stick out his tongue and lick at the same time. Poor baby was soooooooo hungry.
The doctor, who was all of 4 ft 6 inches had her nurse friend that was about 6'3" come in and be the muscle man to hold Cullen down. The man was trained in the art of child restraint apparently because he was able to convince Cullen to put himself in what was supposed to be cape but was more like a straight jacket. He angled Cullen and they had numbed it so hard that he didn't feel a thing, but in his loopy state didn't like being restrained. They eventually got 3 stitches in him and by about 5:15am we were done with our procedure.
They discharged us about 5:30am and gave us a nice little package of papers and told us to be on our way. They were nice and gave Cullen a turkey sandwich and some apple juice which he ate up real quick.
When we got home about 6:00am I just crashed on the couch for a while while Corrie talked to Cullen. I am sure he bounced back around noon or so that Saturday, but I didn't get up until about 3:00pm. It was at that point a wasted weekend, but I didn't care because I had taken care of my little man.
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