Wonderful Weekend

My son is an amazing child.

Now, don't get me wrong, both of my children are exceptional in my view, and I am very happy to go on for hours about either. But today, it's my son's personality and strength that has me amazed.

Since I am in school full time all summer, and my ex-husband's schedule alternates between days and overnights, the kids are in summer latchkey Monday through Friday. On Wednesday, they went bowling. While at the bowling alley, my son kept playing with the balls on the ball return rack despite the teachers having warned him that it was dangerous. At some point in the afternoon, the ball return spit out a bowling ball, which squished my son's thumb against one of the other balls. The blow split the cuticle, and his grandpa put a Band-aid on his thumb when he got home. The next day, his group went bowling again, and he bowled an even better game than he had on Wednesday.

At this point, I would like to point out that my son just plain does not complain. When he was a toddler, he would get sick to his stomach, and when he was done, he would look up at his father and say "I'm okay."

Anyway, with their father's schedule at work this week, he only was home for a short time after the kids got out of latch key before it was time for him to head to work. So his mother was with them during the evenings on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. He did not see our son's thumb uncovered until Saturday. By this time, it was twice the size of his other thumb and a horrible greyish purple, except for the base of his thumbnail, which was beginning to show signs of infection.

Gavin had spent most of the afternoon playing a Star Wars game on the Wii, using both hands. When we were looking at the thumb, we asked him why he didn't say anything, and he insisted "It doesn't hurt." When his grandfather got to the house, he looked at my son's hand and said that he thought it looked worse than when he had bandadged it. That ended the debate, and we decided to bring him to the Emergency Room.

While we were in the waiting room, he calmly played a game on his father's phone, sipped from his bottle of root beer and munched on some cheese Bugles. Finally, the traige nurse called his name, and we headed into the office. Temperature was taken, as were pulse and blood pressure while his father explained what had happened. She then explained the 1-5 scale and asked how badly his thumb hurt. He said it was about a two. She was amazed by that, declaring that just looking at it hurt her bad enough to be considered a 3. But she marked down his answer, and took him over to the scale to get an accurate weight. That done, we went down to the desk for his father to handle all the insurance information. While we waited for him, my son made faces at me, wet-willied me a few times, then continuously buzzed my neck, until I had to get a tissue to wipe away his spit. Several times, my ex had to tell him to use his inside voice because he was giggling so loudly.

Finally, we were taken back to the examining room, and it was only a minute or two before someone came to take him to get x-rays. He bravely sat there, his hand on the table underneath this huge machine, while they took three different x-rays of his hand. The techs gave him a handful of stickers for being so good. Just a few minutes a fter that, the doctor came in, explained that he'd broken his thumb, showed us the x-ray, in which the bone at the tip of his thumb looked v-shaped. The doctor then examined the skin around his thumbnail. It was, he informed us, infected, but rather than drain off the infection, he wanted to prescribe some antibiotics. If they worked well, then Gavin would be fine until Monday, when he would need to go to his pediatrician for a referral to an orthopedic doctor. (at which point, Gavin insisted loudly that he was NOT going to go to an orthopedic doctor, he was going to go to an Indian doctor, because she's from India). They stressed, however, that if he developed a fever, if the swelling got worse, or if the thumb started oozing anything weird looking, that we were supposed to bring him right back.

So, we left the ER and headed to the store to get gauze bandages to keep his splint on with. Though, by the time we got out of the ER, the pharmacy at walmart was closed. So, we picked up the bandages, some tape, and headed back to the toy section to get him something as a reward for being so good at the hospital. Once we were done there, we headed up to Walgreens to drop off the prescription, then the three of us went out to dinner.

We had hoped that would be the end of it, that he would be fine until monday, when he could go to his regular doctor. Unfortunately, this morning, when his father unwrapped his hand to get him into the bath, his thumb had begun to bleed and seep infection into the sponge inside his splint. So, they finished his bath, packed up both of the kids into the car, and came to get me for us all to head back to the hospital. Another afternoon of sitting in the ER, this time, with his 5 year old sister in tow.

Once they called him back, the physician's assistant took one look at his thumb and commented that it needed drained. Then the doctor came in and insisted that it would be fine, it didn't need drained. The assistant suggested to my ex that he get a second opinion. He, of course, agreed. The second doctor looked at the chart, handed it back to the assistant, and said "it needs drained". So the first doctor set about preparing to drain it. The assistant said that she wanted to give him three shots for pain, one in the webbing at the base of his thumb, one at the knuckle, and one at the tip where they'd be draining his nailbed. The doctor, however, decided he only needed one. After pushing the 18 guage needle into his nailbed, my 6 year old son informs the doctor that she hurt him. She told him she was sorry. They ended up only getting a small amount of pus, but a lot of blood out of his thumb, and he is saying it still hurts.

Overall, I'm hugely proud of my son. It was an experience that would have most adults in a foul mood, complainig loudly about the pain, and making a much bigger deal of it than he did. He was extremely brave and strong, and I just can't help but be in awe of how well he dealt with the entire weekend.