What a Day!!

Last Tuesday started out so calmly. I've begun taking Tuesdays off language school to give me more time to help the kiddos with their home-schooling not to mention that I'm forty-something and pregnant and don't have the same amount of energy that I once enjoyed. So, I'm was reveling in my first Tuesday off language school and getting my 'stuff' done. I was sitting at my desk working on long overdue correspondence and lesson plans. Hope and Patience were right behind me in the little cubby where my desk is. All of a sudden Patience banged her head on one of the various weird-angled alcoves that stick out of the walls at our house. (Remember all the strange angles?) Anyway, Hope was one foot closer than me and so she saw the damage first and started streaming bloody murder. Patience was pouring blood from her forehead. It was the deepest wound I've seen on one of my children....and unfortunately I've seen plenty....too many.

I tried to lay her back to access the damage but she was bleeding so badly that her eye sockets were filling with blood causing her to scream even more. I yelled down to Joe to come up and bring some towels. Thankfully he had just walked in the door from school. He took one look at her and got on the phone. He asked our friends to meet us at the hospital to help with translation if we needed it. We took her directly to the ER. While I was changing my blood-soaked shirt for another one and Joe was loading her into the car he sent Benjamin to fetch the camera and took the above pic. As we left Hope was still screaming certain that her sister was going to die.

At the hospital they saw the severity of her wound and ushered us straight back to a bed in the ER where they cleaned the wound and ordered x-rays to see if her skull was fractured. (Thankfully it wasn't.) The doc on call said because of the seriousness of the wound he wanted a plastic surgeon to sew her up. However both of the plastic surgeons at that hospital were in surgery. So they sent us to yet another hospital.

When we arrived at the ER at the second hospital there was no one there. I don't mean no patients, I mean no one. No nurse. No doc. No administrator. Nada. We knocked three different times, then our friend went to find someone. The nurse he found said knock again. We did. She watched. Sure enough, she said, there was no one there. (Duh!) An ER with no personnel. The nurse finally tracked down someone and Patience was seen. The plastic surgeon was wonderful and did a great job on Patience's stitches which are in the middle of her forehead. She had to put in 3 layers of stitches since the wound was so deep (I told you it was!). She got a total of 25 stitches....19 on the inside and 6 on the outside. YIKES!!

Through it all Paish was a trooper. They didn't even have to knock her out! We took her out for an ice cream when it all began to sink in to me what had happened. God was good and gave us all strength throughout the entire ordeal, but I'm so glad that this Tuesday has been much quieter....so far.....of course the day's not over yet! :>)

P.S. After we left for the hospital Jake took Hope aside and calmed her down by showing her all his stitch scars as well as those of his brothers and sister. Hope then realized that Patience would be okay. What a good brother!!

P.P.S. This incident put us over the 50% mark. Now, 6 out of our 10 children have had stitches....60%!