Apparently the Pen *IS* Mightier Than the Sword

Linnae proved it tonight. At 16 months (and still refusing to walk without holding something), she's using anything and everything to pull herself up these days. This evening, she made a bad choice. She chose the electric pencil sharpener cord. She was sitting on her knees with her feet bent behind herself and the pencil sharpener hit her just right apparently. Blood gushing everywhere. We applied pressure for a good while, Hubby washed with alcohol and applied a firm bandage. Still bleeding. So we called Grammy over to watch the other three while we took Linnae to the ER.


We had a medical student in training so aside from telling the receptionist, two nurses, the billing lady, the doctor and I'm sure several others, we also had to tell her the story. They looked at it (and it was still bleeding good) and determined that stitches would indeed be needed.


So they brought in iodine first and had us hold her foot in it "for 10 minutes. I'll watch the clock because it's exactly on time with my watch". After forty-five minutes of crying and screaming and pure exhaustion, they came in and took her foot out of the bath.

The nurse laid Linnae on her belly on the nurse's lap and they put two stitches in. It was still bleeding pretty well so they wrapped it up tight for 20 minutes.



Then they came in and loosened the bandage and sent us to Walgreens for antibiotics. I need to see if she's had her 12 month tetanus shot tomorrow (we're a little behind on a couple because we switched pediatricians).


I only had my camera phone but it's better for posterity than nothing. ;) All in all, she was a trooper. She really let it out while they were doing the stitches but other than that, most of her crying was just being super over-tired. And, as you can see from the pictures, she was quite calm at times.

So I get to spend a week "keeping her foot elevated and try to keep her from putting too much pressure on it". Yeah. OK. At least it's on the underside of her foot...only her pedicurist ever need know. ;)