GG's trip to the ER

The Hastings proclivity for facial scars takes another victim. My body is marred by any number of scars, from the "Big One" the six inch long, 1/2 inch wide scar down the back of my ankle to the strange backward "Y" Harry Potter like scar on my forehead. I have a "new" scar on the left side of my nose from striking my face on an open bathroom vanity drawer, and an old 2" long football scar on the back of my right arm. Last night, GG proved her Hastingsness by slicing her lip open.

We were planning on attending a "Sammamish City Nights" concert last night, and as I came home from work, everything was fine. GG was upstairs with Mama, and as she often does when I get home, she said "Dadda?" I said hi GG, then heard the double thud of an excited GG tumbling down the stairs.

GG immediately started crying, and as I went up the stairs to get her, she looked scared but fine. All of a sudden in a split second, there was blood everywhere. She was lying on her back on the middle portion of the stairs and blood was running from her mouth all over her face and into her eyes. I grabbed her, took her down to the kitchen, and began to wipe away the blood. Just my luck I happened to be wearing a crisp white dress shirt that was now soaked in blood.

After wiping away most of the blood, the injury didn't appear too bad. About a 1/2 inch gash on the right side of her lip. The gash was a gaping gash and was bleeding pretty good. I looked and it didn't go all the way through and her teeth were all present and accounted for. Naarah took a look, and after vetoing my trip to the ER when I cut my face open six months earlier, declared we need to go to the Emergency room.

By the time we packed up GG, she was in a pretty good mood and excited to go on an adventure with Momma and Dadda. At the emergency room, we waited in the lobby for about 2 hours and GG had a good time running around looking at the fish tanks, and pretty much having a great time. Naarah and I talked about just going home, but a nurse said that we really should get the gash sown up, so that she wouldn't be horribly scarred for life.

After seeing the doctor and being told that she would need stitches, we sat around in the ER room for another hour and tried to get GG to hold a topical anesthetic to her lip. The doctor said that if we could get her to numb up her lip, we wouldn't have to restrain her when she got stitches. - GG didn't really like to hold the anesthetic to her lip, so we went with plan #2 restrain a toddler.

Naarah left because she didn't want to see what was going to happen, as the male nurse came in with the restraints (1 pillow case and a few blankets.) The nurse told GG that he was going to make her a superman cape and proceeded to tuck GG's arms into a pillow case behind her body. After GG got her cape on, we laid her down, and stretched a blanket across her upper torso. The doctor came by and said, "you better restrain her legs too, you really don't want to be kicked in the head by a toddler..." So the nurse stretched a sheet across her legs.

As soon as the Doctor poked her lip with the syringe GG yelled out "All Done" and began to scream and thrash around. She continue to yell "All Done" and the Doctor said "I bet". GG is strong like bull, it took two grown men, the nurse and myself to restrain her. The nurse laid across her upper torso and I was responsible for laying across her legs. GG is super strong, and I started to sweat trying to keep her from kicking the crap out of all three of us.

It took about ten minutes for the Doctor to give GG 5 stitches and through the whole thing she kept crying and saying "All Done". When the stitching was over, we let GG get up and she was drenched in sweat. Her hair was sticking straight out and she looked like the mug shot of Nick Nolte after he was arrested for a 3 day bender. GG recovered pretty quickly and as we drove home 4 hours after she fell down the stairs, she spend the car ride home pointing out the moon to us.