This Hospital is Fun

On October 23 we had our first trip to the Emergency Room. It truly is a miracle that we haven't taken Noah before now. The way this kid jumps, climbs, and generally has no fear about things that he does with his body...anyway, thankfully our first trip to the ER was not a life-threatening injury. Noah got a good gash in his chin requiring three stitches, but other than that he was fine.

It was a Saturday morning. We were all just lounging around in our PJs. Jon was getting ready to make breakfast. I stepped out of the room for a moment, and then I heard the crying. Jon was in the kitchen with the kids so I wasn't worried...until I came back to the kitchen. Jon said in the most calm voice imaginable, "Mandy, don't look, just go get dressed. Don't look, just go call my parents and tell them to come stay with Anna. We're going to need to go to the hospital. Just don't look, okay?"

Apparently Noah had been pushing his little blue booster chair on the carpet in the living room and when he hit the change in flooring (the kitchen tile) his chair caught on the edge of the tile and stopped, but he kept going and sailed over the chair landing his precious chinny chin chin on the line where the tile meets the carpet. Poor little guy. Ouch! He cried, and he bled but his Daddy was right there. Thank goodness!!! For all of our sakes. I mean, if I had been alone with the kids when this happened, I would have handled it, but thank goodness I didn't have to.

So I did as I was told because I knew if I looked I would quite possibly freak out. So Tom and Ruth came over to stay with Anna, and we want to the hospital. Noah was very brave. As we sat in the waiting room we said a prayer that God would help Noah be as brave as David when he faced Goliath, and I would say our prayer was answered.

Noah had a bit of fear in the first few moments in the ER--getting weighed on the scale and getting his temperature taken were quite difficult. Yes, you read that right. So you can imagine that if those things were hard, Jon and I were preparing for the worst once we actually got to the suturing part of things. But once we were back in the room, Noah was totally chill. I layed down on the bed, and he layed on me and watched TV while the nurse and doctor did their thing.

He didn't even mind the stitches (or whiskers as the doctor called them) because they had this amazing conglomeration of stuff called TAC that they put on his chin before the doc started sewing and it made so Noah couldn't feel a thing. He just stayed in a trance watching Sponge Bob the whole time. It was fantastic. I have never been so grateful for Saturday morning cartoons as I was that day.

And another bright side of the expereince was that one part of the TAC (the "C" part) is a mild topical version of cocaine, so the whole rest of the day we could tell people that our son was a "coke head." Okay, I know it's not right to joke about drug addiction, but come on, when your son is three it's kind funny, isn't it?

Anyway before we left the doctor gave Noah some rubber gloves and face masks to take home for his doctor kit. And all of this only took about one hour. Amazing!

Then on the way out of the hospital as Noah skipped to the car, dodging someone else's pile of vomit in the parking lot (lovely), he says with gusto, "This hospital is fun!" So yes, GGH, if you need a spokesman or someone to do a commercial for you, Noah is your guy. You can reach him at noahschrock@gmail.com.

I'm really grateful for our quick and positive experience in the ER. The only problem is now we can't say, "don't do that Noah or you might have to go to the hospital" because he wants to go back. Oh brother!