Jack Has a Hole in His Head

Jack has a hole in his head. No, really. There is a hole in the back of his head now. Last night, the kids were playing and Jack got pushed...into the garage door. And he hit the back of his head on one of the metal parts of the door. He screamed. I came running.

When I saw the back of his head, I'm not gonna lie, I almost passed out. Blood was already streaming from the wound into his platinum blonde hair. I could already see it. There was a hole in my baby's head!! I called Eli immediately and asked him to come right home. I put pressure on the wound and it stopped bleeding fairly quickly. Jack calmed down equally as quickly, which helped me calm down...or not.

Upon Eli's return home and his inspection of the wound, we both decided a visit to the ER was in order. I loaded Jackie into the van, firetruck footie PJs and all, and headed to Children's Hospital. We were there from about 8:00pm to 12:40am. It was a long wait, but I was so incredibly impressed with Jack. We read some books, made a couple trips to the vending machine for PopTarts and potato chips, colored with some new friends, and took about 50 laps around the giant fish tank counting all the blue fish.

After an hour (1 hour past bedtime, 9:00pm), Jack started to ask if we could go home yet. He asked calmly and politely, a simple inquiry to let me know that he was feeling done with our wait. He asked a couple times, but never complained when I told him we had to wait for the Doctor to see us. An hour and a half after THAT (10:00pm), he started to tell me he was feeling tired. Again, he never complained, even when we had several unsuccessful attempts at helping him fall asleep. So I relented and turned on Dragon Tales on my phone. 30 minutes later (10:30pm), we had a room to ourselves...where we continued to watch Dragon Tales for the next 45 minutes. At this point (11:15 pm), a kind nurse came in to tell us that they were going to put some numbing gel on his head that had to sit on the wound for 30 minutes before they could stitch it up. But, she did promise a purple, red, purple, red popsicle when it was all said and done.

After another 15 minutes (11;30pm), she came back in, applied the gel, and wrapped Jack's head in such a way that he reminded me of Jacob Marley from A Christmas Carol. He leaned against me and moved on to a few episodes of Peppa Pig, while I prayed that my phone wouldn't die. Let me tell you, Nickolodeon is NOT kid friendly at midnight. Friends may sound innocent enough, but it just isn't. W needed that phone to work. So we continued to wait.

Once they came in for the stitches (12:00am), it took all of 15 minutes to do...maybe. Not even. But again, Jack rose to the occasion. He laid perfectly still, let us know it hurt to push on that tender spot, but never cried, yelled, or lost control. He was so matter-of-fact.

He came away with a cool bracelet, a red popscicle, new friends, and a lot of quality time with Mom. We were both so hungry after we left that we made a late night stop at McDonalds for a cheeseburger and got home just before 1:00am. We had FUN together. Even at the hospital. And I learned a lot from my little guy. Don't sweat the small stuff, even if it's a small hole in your head. Most importantly, I have a greater understanding for what our Heavenly Father feels for us when we are hurting (physically or emotionally). I know that sometimes he doesn't want to look when the stitches are being put in, but he does...because he knows that the Savior has already applied the healing balm of Gilead. And if He looks, He can see his children heal and grow...and see the wonderful men and women they are becoming. All the while, He will be holding their hands.