Emerson Got Scalp Staples

Well, the morning started off great, with coordinated morning drop-off’s for all five girls.

And we got this one cute picture of Emerson at school….

Before things took a bad turn. Around lunch time, the school called saying she had hurt herself on the playground, and needed to get seen by a doctor. Jeff rushed out to pick her up, and after having a mild sobbing freak-out sitting at my office desk, I headed up that way to meet them. (Don’t worry, no graphic photos in this post.)

Nana works on the other end of that little office plaza with her building at one end, daycare in the middle, and the “new” ER on the other end, so she walked over to the ER to be with them for a bit until I could get there, then we switched places once I got there. When I first got there, and finally saw the avulsion in person, and heard what was happening, I was actually shaky and weak and had to instantly sit down. (Which was OK, since Emmie wanted me to sit next to her anyways.) I’m not entirely sure, but I might have almost fainted.

Jeff had thankfully remembered to grab her bunny & Kindle before heading out the door, and both of those things helped keep her calm and entertained while the doctors and nurses worked on her head. This picture is after doing some of the cleaning-up part, and they were giving her a little break.

And then this tiny smile and sleepy eyed photo was actually after she got 12 staples and 1 stitch, to put her poor little scalp back together, to fix the avulsion. They did have to trim off a few strands of her hair (ironically, her very first hair cut), but I was so glad they didn’t have to shave her head. (We have some very graphic, gory photos of everything, but I won’t be sharing them here.)

We were discharged around 3:30 or so, and went to pick up Addison from school.

We treated her to a Blizzard from DQ afterwards, to reward her for being so strong and brave. She honestly was SO GOOD getting taken care of in the ER, especially considering they didn’t give her any pain meds until after they were done (and then it was only some regular children’s Tylenol), and they didn’t do any anesthetic, other than the numbing jelly, which I promise you, did NOT numb it enough that she didn’t feel her scalp getting stapled.

We cuddled and rested together in my bed watching some tv, just trying to get her to calm down and rest for a while, since she had skipped nap time, and had such a rough day. She wouldn’t sleep, and would barely close her eyes (and actually got mad at me for trying to get her to sleep because she said I tricked her since I had just said “rest” and not “sleep” when we made our cuddle plans…), but we stayed there for about 45 minutes, while our dinner cooked.

And these two fell asleep together, even when Emerson wouldn’t.

I had thrown together Nana’s recipe for cheesy chicken & rice casserole for our dinner, and it came out perfectly. I did some steam-in-bag broccoli & crescent rolls on the side, and it was all so good.

And Emmie ate so good, and even had seconds.

We had to wash and clean her hair and head after dinner, and I was really nervous about how it would go. But I actually got in the tub with her, and let her lay down on me and a towel, while we worked together to get her cleaned up. And it actually worked great, and she stayed so sweet and calm, and even thanked us for taking care of her. We were SO CAREFUL, and got her cleaned up almost all the way, with just a little bit left that we didn’t want to mess with too much. And then we let her finish her Blizzard from earlier, that we had saved in the freezer for her.

Jeff fed Addie and got her to sleep, while I did Emmie’s bedtime routine with her. We gave her some Motrin, and have Tylenol ready if she wakes up in pain during the night. She actually asked to sleep with Mommy tonight, so Jeff told her she could and he’ll sleep on the couch instead.

He’s been laying with her while I’ve been writing this, but I’m heading back to lay down with her now, and I’ll read just a little bit. This day was exhausting and draining for all of us, so I have no doubt I’ll fall asleep soon myself, after all this…

We’ll have to take her back to the doctor in 8-10 days to get her staples removed. So everyone please pray for her until then, and pray for us while we take care of her.