It ain't right

Saturday was GORGEOUS.  We had a fabulous day of outdoor work and activities and then decided to take the kids to the park for dinner.  We tried a new park we'd never been to before - Lion's Park - which sits on the water in Bremerton.  Might be my new favorite park. The kiddos ran and played, Max and Ty threw the ol' pig skin around a ton, and there was this really cool tree that I wanted to get a picture of the kids on.  Pictures were successful and Max and Kelly went off to play.

Ev wanted to hang in the tree a little longer, so I stayed with him, Tuck in my arms.  Ev was trying to climb higher onto a branch when he lost his footing and fell onto his back/side (not to be confused with his backside).  He wasn't very high, but crashed his back pretty good on more branches.  Ty ran over to assist since I had Tuck in my arms.  Ev was crying pretty good for a few minutes and we took turns consoling him.  Then he was done and we finished up a great night at the park with our little fam - a walk on the pier, slides, climbing on awesome Orca statues, lots of running around.  As we drove home I felt so happy and content with my little family and the life we have.

The plan was to head home and Ty was going to give the kids baths and put them to bed while I ran to the store for some last-minute Easter stuff and a few things to make cookies for my Primary class. I thought I would help him get the kids into the bath before I left.  I was in the other bathroom when Ty brought Ev in and says to me, "Look at this."  Everett was fussing when he tried to sit down in the water and Ty was looking for the cause...he had a pretty big gash/hole in his *ahem* scrotum!  It looked awful.  We had NO idea how it got there.  Did something happen as he was trying to get in the bath?  We asked questions and talked about it...and then it hit us - the tree at the park!  When he fell there must have been a branch or something that punctured him.  Notice how the tree is, how it grows up with lots of branches from the ground?  That's our best guess as to what happened, and I think it MUST have been.

We took some pictures and texted them to one of Ty's doctor brothers for an opinion.  He said that we definitely needed to get it looked at.  We weren't sure what to do - take him to the ER?  We looked all over the peninsula (and even on the other side of the water) for an urgent care that was open past 5 or 6 p.m. on a Saturday.  I hate to say it, but the $ was a consideration.  The ER is SO much more expensive than urgent care for our insurance plan.  We were trying to decide if it could wait until morning when an urgent care would be open.  But THEN Ty found a 24-hour urgent care about 30 minutes from us.  Ty has handled the past two urgent care traumas and so I wanted to take this one.

I loaded my boy, his blankie, and the stuffed animal Max had convinced Ev would help him if he had to get stitches {Max was VERY worried about Ev getting stitches, especially in such a sensitive area} into the van and headed for Port Orchard.  He chatted happily most of the way and asked me several times if he was going to get a shot {I think Max sneakily told him it was a possibility even though I asked Max to keep all of that to himself}.  I kept trying to avoid the question and change the subject; I didn't want to tell him that I thought a shot would be the least of his problems.  He fell asleep about 10 minutes before we got there {it was about 9:30 p.m.}  We got to the Harrison Urgent Care and it was pretty dead.  I thought it would be quick.  I was wrong.  We waited quite a while to be called back.  Ev slept on my lap the whole time and then he slept like a champ while the nurse weighed him, took his temp, and checked his blood pressure.  She thought it was so funny.  She took us into a room and said it would be 5-10 minutes.  Ev kept sleeping and about 45 minutes later I was starting to think we'd been forgotten {It was about 11:15} so I went and found someone to have them check it out for me.

The doc came in about 10 minutes later.  He was super nice; Ev woke up as he came in and was not thrilled about anything that was happening.  Immediately the doctor said, "Oh yeah, that's going to need some stitches."  I tried to prepare Ev a little bit while the doc stepped out to get a nurse, but how does one exactly prepare a 3-year-old boy that he's about to get stitches...let alone stitches where he was going to be getting them?  The doctor came back in saying, "Man, what a guy!  Not many guys would be able to say they had their scrotum ripped open and then went on playing like it was nothin'!"  The nurse held his legs, I held his arms and upper body and just got super close to his face and talked to him so he couldn't see what was going on.  As I was holding him there and he was crying, I was thinking, "Why the heck did I want to come?!  Why didn't I send Ty?!"  But I had on my game face {well, my sympathetic smiling mom face} and did my darnedest to make it better for him.  I thought it was awful.  The doc said he was super impressed with Ev and expected it to be MUCH worse than it was.  Perspective, I guess.

So that is the story of how Everett D ended up with three stitches {the doc kind of wanted to do 4, but there was bleeding and he didn't want to wait for it to stop while he was stitching and prolong the agony} in a place where no boy or man should have stitches.

And for the past FOUR days he has had the stomach flu with a trip to the pediatrician because I was {unnecessarily} worried.

It just ain't right.