In which we visit urgent care

Warning: This post contains some graphic descriptions. If you don't like blood and gore, you may wish to skip the third paragraph and opt to read the shorter fourth one in parenthesise.

It all started with my goal to lose 20 pounds by Christmas. While pregnant with Timothy I gained a whopping 50 pounds. That's a lot more than I gained with Ryan. Of course, after the first six weeks post-partum I'd lost 20 pounds. I am currently at 43 pounds lost, which is really awesome. I, however, still wish to be back to a certain number, which happens to be about 20 pounds lighter than I am now.

In addition cutting out my dear friend chocolate from my diet, I have also been walking. When the weather was warmer, we were walking outside. Now that it's cooler, I have begun using the treadmill. Ryan had been really good about just coming in and looking, never touching. I also tried to walk when he was sleeping, but today I wanted to walk and shower just once.

My back was to the door when Ryan came in and talked about me walking. Then he let out this awful scream, which made me leap from the treadmill (and because I had the safety magnet clipped to me, that means the treadmill turned off the minute the magnet came out) causing it to turn off. Ryan's little hand with wedged under the back part of the belt I I pried it out to find that pretty much all of the skin (almost down to the bone) was off of his middle and ring fingers. ER here we come.

(Ryan got a really big boo-boo on his middle and ring fingers from the treadmill. I determined that this boo-boo needed emergency medical care.).

I ran to the phone and dialed Adam right away. If the truck had been here this week I would have just gotten in it and headed straight for the ER, but alas that was not my luck at all. With Adam on the way, I started getting both me and the kids ready. When they were all bundled up, the diaper bag was packed and the boo-boo ice pack was on Ryan's awful looking fingers, we locked the door and walked to the end of the driveway.

That was the longest 15 minutes of my life.

When we got to the end of Sarah Lane, I realized that the urgent care facility was a heck of a lot closer than the ER, so we quickly proceeded there.

Ryan was screaming when we got there and the silly triage nurse says, "oh he has blisters, he'll be fine." Okay, thanks lady, but you obviously didn't get a good look. The next nurse was a man. I think men make better nurses, at least in my experience with nurses and my kids thus far in my mommy experience (except for the nurses on the maternity ward). Anyway, Don the nurse was great with Ryan and we managed to get a weight and all the other pertinent information rather quickly. He said Ryan's fingers were burned and possibly broken, but the doc would be in to see us. Doc was also a male and rather young, but he was also great with Ryan. He also confirmed the burn and break theory and sent us for x-rays down the hall.

The x-ray tech was a nice old lady who was also very nice to both Ryan and myself. With four x-rays to take of his little hand, she knew the task at hand would be difficult, but was so patient. I just kept praying, "please don't let it be broken," again and again. With much difficulty, we got those four x-rays and made our way back to the room where daddy had put little Timothy to sleep.

Don the nurse had also given Ryan Advil while we waited for the doc the first time and had now come in to give Ryan Tylenol with Codeine. I might also mention that, at this point, Ryan had been screaming at the top of his little lungs for an hour and 40 minutes. Not long after the Tylenol, Ryan fell asleep. Doc came in and told us there were no broken bones (thank the Lord) and that his burns would heal just fine.

Nurse Don came back to show us how to bandage them and to go over discharge info. Ryan woke up during the bandaging part and has been awake ever since. He's in bed trying to nap right now, but he's having a hard time getting comfortable.

I feel awful that Ryan's hand got hurt so badly. At the same time I know that these things happen. I just really hope this is our last visit to any emergency care place for the rest of 2008.

Ryan and his boo-boo.