Justin scheduled a wedding to shoot in Fort Smith back in the spring for August 3. When he told me the date, I thought, "There is no way I can do that." Folks... August is the month I basically don't exist outside of work. There is no time off. There is no sick. There is only work.
And it is hands down the most fun month out of the year. I get to train the hall directors and the RAs and move in the residents and then train them... it is what fun is all about, actually. But it is LONG and I work LONG hours and LONG weeks (read: no days off really).
But, I found a way we could actually go out of town for that weekend and it not spin the Earth off of its axis. Which worked out nicely as I kind of dig the "Earth spinning on its axis" thing.
I left work a few hours early on Friday and got us packed up and headed to pick up Sam at Susan's so we could get to A-town Friday night.
While on the interstate, I get a call from Susan. She says, "Hey... so this is your first 'come get your kid and take them to the doctor' call."
Because every parent wants to hear that...
She goes on to tell me he has fallen and busted his eye open on the corner of the couch. It isn't his eyeball necessarily, but it is right beside his eye and it is bleeding a lot and looks deep... like can see the muscle deep. As she continued describing it, she said it isn't wide at all. It would only take one or two stitches, but it is so deep she is concerned.
Well piss.
I call our doctors office to be told they are closing for the day (it was 4:35 pm) and that I needed to take him to the ER.
Boooo.
So I called an after hours clinic (because I'm a rebel and I DON'T FOLLOW INSTRUCTIONS!!!) to which I was told to take him to the ER, they don't treat for trauma.
Bummer.
When we got to Susan's, he had stopped crying and it had sort of stopped bleeding (leaking is a better way to describe it).
Because I'm a rebel and because it had pretty much stopped bleeding and because I had talked to my sister (a nurse) and my friend's husband (a nurse anesthetist) and because ER copays are DAMN expensive and because the pharmacist advised using steri-stitches on it with some triple anti-biotic cream... we did just that.
Don't be jealous of our mad steri-stitching skills, mkay?
I rode in the back seat with him on the way to Alma. We stopped and had dinner at "chickalay" and visited with Michelle for a bit. We watched Meet the Robinsons. And kept blotting his eye b/c it kept leaking! But it finally stopped around 11 pm that night and we were able to rest.
Because of this eye drama, we decided I should probably hang back from the wedding and take care of Sam. I'd hate for my good friend/cousin Ashley to not only have to make sure he stays safe and doesn't eat something that he's allergic to (milk and nuts) but also make sure he doesn't bust his face open again. And playing outside seemed like a bad idea.
So we stayed together and played all day. And he was HIGH. MAINTENANCE.
I told Justin he had it easy just shooting a wedding. Good. Grief.
We went to bed that night before Justin got home. When we laid down, Sam said his throat felt funny. I thought it was a ploy to stay up longer and talk so I made him lay down and go to sleep.
Then he woke up around 11 pm gasping for air, barking like a seal, seriously CAN. NOT. BREATH.
This is not my first rodeo in the "kid can't breath" arena. I immediately spring to action. I jerked him up out of the bed and headed for the freezer to stick his head in it and get his throat to calm down (great way to get some relief for croup if you didn't know that already).
Didn't help. He could not get a breath.
Meanwhile, I'm not a multi-tasker. Like I can't talk and do something at the same time. This includes telling my husband what is going on as he watches HORRIFIED and demanding answers. Not that I blame him, I just had a wee bit of tunnel vision at the time.
I try and try to get the kid to breath and we just can't make it happen. I tried to get him to focus on taking a sip of water... nothing. Finally I tell Justin to get my dad or Debbie to take us to the hospital.
Justin gets the car as cold as he possibly can and we head towards the ER. When we got there, they took him back to triage and immediately ordered a breathing treatment to happen in the triage room. It started getting better. He was talking now, though still audibly wheezing.
Respiratory comes back and gives him an inhaler and spacer.
Translation: They gave him meth. His second dose of meth for the night.
He was BOUNCING off the walls. Literally, at one point, he was up in my face, tongue hanging out, hands at either side of his face just making silly faces and noises. In my face. Like an inch from my face.
After we got the clear x-ray of his lungs back and were expecting the doctor to come discharge us, I made a joke to him, "Sam, if you don't call down I'm going to push you off the bed!"
First off... I was clearly kidding. I say crazy crap to him all the time. He says crazy crap back. It is super fun.
Apparently I said that seconds before he wanted to attempt a triple lutz off the side of the ER bed, because OFF HE WENT INTO THE FLOOR!
I lunged for him, barely caught him by his feet about two inches before he hit the ground head first... and I've scratched his face. Major.
Can this kid catch a break!? Geez...
So he was looking something rough there for a few days... or a week... whatever.
We are doing much better now. He got to sleep in our room for about a week b/c it freaks me out him waking up like that and, according to him, "It makes me so happy inside to sleep with momma!"
I think it made us both happy inside... no matter if he wakes up at 3 am crying, "MOMMY!!! Please keep me safe!"
Melt. My. Heart.
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