Five Little Stiches

20 months and 10 days. That is how long we kept our little daredevil out of the ER.

We've often wondered when and how he would get injured...would it be when he stands on the end of the couch, no hands, and then dives onto the cushions...would it be when he wiggles out of the belt and jumps up and down in his high chair... or would it be when he decides to surf on the rocking ottoman.

It turns out that our ER free life ended with a sprint and a slip in the kitchen with a glass salad dressing bottle in hand.

I got the call from Jason as I was returning from the ER after finishing a 3 hour evaluation of a psych patient. He said, "Come home asap. Robert cut his hand pretty badly."

Of course as a doctor (probably more as a mother), I immediately went into disaster mode. I had a plan for the multiple levels of injury that I might come home to.

How deep is the cut? How long? And where? Was he scared? How was Jason? Could he move all of his fingers? Would they be able to handle him at an urgent care center? Would he need sedation? Or maybe it was serious enough that he would need to see a surgeon from hand or plastics?

Of course as I was pulling into the drive, my pager went off. It was the ER. Another psych patient that needed emergent evaluation. Things were getting tricky! My mind was in overdrive!

Luckily, I walked in the house. Jason had gotten the bleeding to stop. RLG's hand was wrapped in a towel and both seemed relatively calm. You'd think Jason was the pro! And Robert was a real trooper. He said "oowie" and let me look at his hand. It definitely needed stitches, no glue would do. But at least he was moving all of his fingers.

So the three of us piled into the car and went to the ER. Jason and Robert hung out in triage while I worked up the new patient. How ridiculous is that! The timing actually worked because it took about 3 hours for Jason and Robert to get in a room. Believe it or not that was with the help of my colleagues.

Robert got 5 stitches. It was tough on him. It may have been tougher on Jason and I.


We didn't get home and cleaned up until about 2am. Then my pager went off at 4am. Another patient to be evaluated.

The good news is that when I got home Robert was up to his usual shenanigans, with an rare mention of his "owwie".