Caution, gaping wounds.

If icky stuff makes you faint, you may not want to see this. I'll see if I can ramble on long enough that the pictures don't pop right up and gross you out. Today was a decent day, and I got most of my must do things all done. I got dinner in the crock pot and Rylee fell asleep. The kids were all happy and content, so I thought I'd lie down for a little nap. I had just settled in for a snooze, when Joshua came in, very distraught and saying "I'm so sorry about the window!" I was just incoherent enough that I couldn't figure out what he meant, but I caught the tone of voice and I was out of bed and down the stairs before I knew what I was doing. Then I saw the blood.

Joshua had seen his friend coming up to the house. If you saw the previous post, you saw Rylee standing by the door, looking out the window. Joshua saw his friend through those same windows and smacked the window to get his friend's attention. Unfortunately, he put his hand right through it. Oops. I admit to not doing well with the onslaught of issues: broken glass in and outside, a gaping hole where the window use to be, and blood. Lots of blood. Then I saw the cuts and I was even more overwhelmed. I kind of panicked. They were so big, and the way they looked, it seemed like there might be shards of glass still in them. And there were so many cuts! I got Joshua into the kitchen and sat him down. I put napkins on the gash in his leg and got some for his arm. Then I saw the slice on his wrist. I got napkins for that one. I saw more cuts on his arm, and his ear was bleeding! Aack!! How does one deal with multiple large cuts? I duct taped the napkins on and hoped there was enough pressure on them, since Joshua couldn't apply pressure to every on of the cuts himself.

I knew I had to take him to the ER, but what to do with the other kids?! I wasn't as rational as I could have been, but after several minutes of running around like a lunatic, I realized I could call the fabulous gal across the street, which I did. She had already heard and was getting ready to come over. I have the BEST neighbors! She came over and I got Joshua in the car. I loaded Rylee in as well and took off. While I was gone, this marvelous girl cleaned the blood off the floor and cardboarded the window for me. Dan got home about an hour later.

Joshua stoically bled in the car and was awesome. They checked us in and took us back and examined his owies. He had to gt x-rayed to make sure there was no glass- and there was none. After cleaning and poking the wounds, they decided it would be better to sedate him and he got an IV and some Ketamine and the doctor marathon stitched him together. It took Joshua almost longer get back to normal than it took to stitch him up. The nurse was awesome and picked up the prescriptions for me so we wouldn't have to go down to the pharmacy. We were there about 4 hours total and got home about 8:30

Here are his 2 worst cuts, all nicely cleaned up. He was so lucky that the wrist one missed his artery and didn't damage any tendons.

Here is the leg cut, by his knee.

Total arm damage. Can you say eeeewww, gross!

Right before they knocked him out. All hooked up to 500 monitors just in case.

Out cold and doing great.

All done, all bandaged, and still quite loopy.

This is the ear. I think he got 2-3 stitches because it sliced a flap of cartilage open. Icky.

All done, just waiting for the IV to get out so he can put on a shirt. Lovely bandage so we can't see the carnage.

Me and Rylee. Rylee was pretty good for it all. She sure gets heavy though!

So, Joshua has some great drugs. He gets Tylenol with codeine for a bit. Since the cuts were deep, he also gets an antibiotic. He earned the respect of all the nurses and the doctor for being so amazing. He never cried, never screamed, and never struggled. They were really impressed that he was so good. I was too. I think he did better than I did. He is a terrific kid.