ER

Daphne in good spirits at the ER. I will spare you the photo
that Michael took of the gash on the back of her head.

As a parent there are some firsts that you hope never happen to your child. On Saturday Daphne had her first trip to the emergency room! She had a bleacher accident at Tyler’s end-of-season baseball carnival. I was holding the kids’ place in line in the hot sun for the barrel train ride. Michael, the kids, Ludy, and Michael’s parents were hanging out on the bleachers in the shade. Daphne climbed up on the second row of the bleachers and when Michael wasn’t looking climbed up to the third. Michael’s mom, who is very overly cautious by nature, urgently warned Michael that Daphne was climbing too high. Michael reached out to grab Daphne and little Ms. Independent instinctively leaned backwards because she didn’t want any help. Daphne fell from the third bleacher about two feet to the foot area for the row above and she hit the back of her head on the junction of a metal post at a metal ledge. (In hindsight, Michael thinks that if he had calmly gotten off the bleachers and walked around behind Daphne she never would have fallen.)

There was blood and we knew immediately that we were heading to the ER. Daphne cried for a little bit while I carried her towards the car and Michael ran to get the car and meet up with us. She was strangely calm and didn’t really say anything on the 6-minute drive to the ER and just stared out the window. I loosely put a clean diaper on her head to help put pressure on the wound and absorb the blood. The bleeding had pretty much subsided by the time we got to the ER.

They admitted us at the ER right away and overall we were probably there for about an hour and a half. Daphne was her normal self in between visits from various nurses and doctors. They used numbing cream around the wound and a doctor put 5 staples in her head! Daphne was so brave and never even cried throughout this whole process. Before the staples a nurse and doctor wrapped her like a burrito in a hospital sheet to restrain her arms and placed her on her belly. She was calm throughout the whole thing. Michael touched her nose and told her he had her nose and Daphne said, “Stop it Daddy.” I sang to Daphne for a little bit while they did the staples and halfway through the second song she said, “Stop it Mom.” What a tough little cookie!

We gave Daphne some preemptive Tylenol before bed on Saturday and she doesn’t seem to be bothered by the staples at all. The doctors will take the staples out 7 – 10 days after she got them.

Side note- I was so proud of myself for not fainting! Of course I avoided looking at Daphne's head wound as much as possible and concentrated on looking Daphne in the eyes while the doctor put the staples in.