Two Days = Two Trips to the Hospital

Monday afternoon I got a call from Olivia's school which is never good. Olivia had fallen down and they thought that she might need stitches. I got to Olivia's school to find her playing in the office with the center directors. She was her typical happy self but one quick look at her upper eyelid and I agreed, she'd probably need the stitches. We went straight to the ER and got there a little before 4pm. It wasn't too crowded so I was optimistic that it would be a quick trip and we'd be home soon. The triage nurse recommended that we see a PA instead of a doctor because we would have a shorter wait time. I asked if PA's could do stitches and the nurse assured me that not only did they do stitches they probably were more experienced in doing stitches than one of the ER residents would be. We settled in for a wait and Olivia started to get a little more fussy. She wanted to be playing but an ER waiting room isn't a good place for a toddler to play and coming from work I wasn't very prepared with my usual supply of toys and books. Finally we saw the PA who took one look at Olivia's eye and said yes, she'll definitely need stitches and one of the ER residents really should take a look and stitch it up since it's on her eyelid. That meant we went to the bottom of the waiting list to see an ER doc. Finally we saw an ER resident and after consultation with the senior resident and the head doctor in the ER they decided that not only did Olivia need some stitches but they really should give her some anesthesia so that they could properly clean out the cut and make sure to stitch it up carefully to minimize the scaring. Unfortunately during our long wait to see the initial PA I had given Olivia some ritz crackers. In order for the doctors to give Olivia the anesthesia it was important that she hadn't had anything to eat for at least 4 hours. That meant we'd have to wait at least another 2 hours in the ER. They moved us into a private room and we settled in for a wait. It almost broke my heart to hear Olivia asking for food "pease" and I couldn't give her anything. Finally they moved us into another room so that they could administer the anesthesia and stitch her up. On the fourth try they were finally able to get the IV in so that they could give her the anesthesia and they stitched up her cut. Five stitches and some paperwork later we were finally on our way home at 11:50 pm!

Olivia went right to bed only for me to wake her up at 8am this morning for another trip to the doctor. On the agenda for today, a skin biopsy and a urine sample. Today's visit was relatively quick (in and out in under 3 hours)! Unfortunately her eye looks worse today than it did last night. It's more swollen but in typical Olivia fashion she seems to be handling it well.

Here are the before and after pictures. Before as we were waiting in the ER room and the after picture was taken this afternoon during lunch.