Trip 2 to the ER (in one night)

I got home from the first trip to the ER and Daddy was not happy. I guess I was supposed to know that there was no radiation in an MRI. Then, I was telling him how the dr said he held open the wound while he was glueing, so that it would heal from the inside out. Made sense to me....but I don't have a medical degree!

Paul starts looking online at the proper way to glue a wound (including Dermabonds website). EVERYTHING said to HOLD THE WOUND CLOSED AND GLUE. So Paul calls the nurse at his office who thinks it was supposed to be closed. She calls the dr who works for the office....HE says closed and should maybe have it checked by someone else. By now, it is after 10. After hour clinics are closed and it is a 30 minute drive to the next nearest hospital.

Paul called the pediatricians office to see what they suggest. The nurse has no idea why the dr would hold it open and glue and calls the dr. Dr has no idea and says it should probably be checked again.

Off we go for trip number 2 to the ER. This ER is nice in that it is seperated, adults and pediatrics. We did not have to sit with the middle-of-the-night-crazy-ER crowd!! In fact, we were the only ones in the waiting room for most of the time we were there.

None of the nurses that we saw before the dr came in understood why it was done the way it was and WHY ON EARTH it was done with his hair pulled up and back (this after the dr at the first ER made a point of saying his hair would stay how ever it was when the glue is put on...but I was not watching him glue and did not see the hairdo he gave my child!).

The dr came in. After we went through everything again with him I asked about an MRI. He said they would have to do a CT scan and the radiation for that is about 100 times more than the radiation from a chest xray. If the first dr had explained this instead of handling it the way he did, it would have been much better! But the pediatric dr did an exam - checked for any fractures around the wound, checked for fractures in his jaw (which he complained on the way to the hospital that it was "feeling funny"), did a neurological exam (much like a sobreity test) and a couple of other tests. Everything checked out fine.

He explained that he had no idea why it was glued the way it was and he had never see it done like that. BUT, it would be VERY painful to get the glue off and cleaned so they could either re-glue with it closed or stitch and that in the long run, it would not pull it much more closer together. He just did not want to put Caleb through the pain and not see much difference.

He said that he was sure there was a concussion, BUT HE told us what to watch for.

He WILL end up with a battle scar on his hairline. The dr showed Caleb his battlescar where his brother was wrestling with him and pushed him into a brick wall. The scar is at the same place Calebs will be and it is mostly in the hair

We got home about 1:30 this morning. The entire trip home was non-stop talk about the stars and what the real name of the moon was.....normal Caleb conversation. Which is probably good, because I was ready to go to sleep!!

I could not convince Caleb to stay home today because they had a field trip this morning.

He had a very hard head apparently, because this morning was the first time his head hurt and he said it was a small headache around the wound. He asked me if I would bandage his head (his entire head) so that noone could see where he split his head open and his crazy hair do.

I will try to take a picture of what it looks like after the ER when he gets home tonight....just didn't have the energy this morning!

The drs and nurses at both ERs were quite impressed that we have four boys and this was only our second (and third) ER visit - especially when they heard the boys ages!!
One asked if we made them live in a bubble - cuz that is the only way that was possible!

I DID NOT get the helmet lecture, although I did give it :)