Melanie: Hey Stacie . .what's up?
Staice: I have Micah at my house. The school called. He and another boy ran into each other on the playground. Micah has a nice wound on his eyebrow. I think he may need stitches again (again meaning he just had stitches on the opposite eyebrow six months ago.
Melanie: Oh great! Okay, I'm on my way. I should be there in twenty minutes or so. . .
Melanie grabs her stuff, cleans off her desk (I know, I know you're thinking why take the time to clean off your desk just get out of there). There is a really good explanation. Everything is confidential, other people use my office, and I have a reputation to uphold for crying out loud!!!
So Melanie gets in car and speeds off making the twenty minute drive from where I work to where I live. Internal dialogue: Why do I have to work so far away? Why isn't there’s something closer to where we live? What if it is really bad and this delay makes it worse? Is he in a lot of pain? Is he crying a lot? Then the mommy guilt starts to creep in . . .I hate working, I hate being unavailable to my kids every possible minute that they might just need me. I don't like the commute . . .Is this all worth it. Mike and I were just talking about this last night. We both have a twenty minute commute. What if something serious happens? We can't afford to pay our Aflac benefits anymore. It would be nice if you could quite your job and go back to school (speaking of Mike), but we can't afford to pay for insurance without your income. Darn golden handcuffs anyway!
Melanie arrives at Stacie's house and assesses the damage. Micah seems to be okay. He is hanging out with a bag of ice and a towel on his forhead. He shows me his wound. Yep! That laceration is going to require a surgical intervention. Let's go bud!
On the way, Micah tells me the whole story. He was chasing the bad guy and it was sunny out so he had his sun glasses on (Don Johnson style cop chase I guess). He hit the other kids head and feel to the ground. When he fell, his face hit the ground and his sunglasses cut his eye lid. So, I am officially putting all parents on alert! Running with sunglasses on is just as dangerous as running with scissors! I bet your mother never warned you about that. Where was the warning label!!!! You heard it here first!
Micah: "Do I have to go to the doctor?" "I don't want to go to the doctor."
Mom: "Yes, we have to have the doctor take a look at that cut." At which point Micah starts to cry.
Micah:" But I don't want to go to the doctor, it will hurt."
Mom: "I know bud, I am soooo sorry."
Micah (who has stopped crying at this point . ."Do you think I'll get another feel better bear?" Referencing the last trip to the ER.
Mom: "Probably. Hard to say. I am sure they will have something."
Internal Dialogue: We just got the bill from the ER for Mikayla's sprained finger. I really don't want to go the ER because they charge you $300 bucks just to walk through the fancy guarded front door. Wait! St. Luke's just opened an Urgent Care! It’s just down the road. Do they do stitches at an Urgent Care? Let's see 20% of $900 is . . . . too much! I don’t want to pay for another ER trip. Urgent Care it is.
Micah: "Mom we just past the Dr." (ER where last stitches were given). He RECOGNIZES the place!
Mom: "I know, we are going to a different doctor . . . ." drives past St. Al's and goes straight to St. Luke's.
We find the Urgent Care, check in and are seen. Yep. It is confirmed we will need stitches. The nurse puts some "magic medicine" on a piece of gauze and co-ban it around his forehead. Micah now looks like he is ready for his cameo on The Karate Kid. Mom gets out the little round mirror in my purse so he can see himself. He laughs. That is a good sign. The doctor comes in and I guess the magic medicine didn't work all of it's magic because she started cleaning that wound and Micah protested. Not too much, but I could tell it hurt. More magic medicine . . .and wait . .and wait . . .Good thing mom brought her computer. He played Maternational while he waited. Then more cleaning . .still hurts (I guess the magic decided not to show up after all). Micah had to have a shot to numb the area . . .seven stitches later we were good to go. I forgot to mention that last time Micah had stitches it was 11:30 at night and he slept through most of it. This time he was wide awake! I think this one will store away in the memory bank!
We walk out of the Urgent Care about an hour after we got there. No feel better bear, but he is armed with four "Cars" stickers. Initially he decorated his arms with the stickers, but now he proudly displays them on his booster seat.
Micah gets home and rests on the couch. His injury is lovingly covered by a professionally placed band-aid. He doesn't even have a black eye!
This is the injury revealed the next morning after fifteen minutes of trying to get the professionally placed bandaid off of his swollen, bruised eye. I know people who use wax to remove unwanted eye-brow hair. I am thinking a bandaid with strong adhesive will net the same results!
This is Micah's attempt at looking sad and pathetic! He does a pretty good job.
Micah has officially expereinced more trips to the ER and more medical procedures than our entire family combined. This is his third. I guess it is true . . . he's all boy.
Micah has officially expereinced more trips to the ER and more medical procedures than our entire family combined. This is his third. I guess it is true . . . he's all boy.
