It's going to be my new goal to update a post every Monday- and hopefully with relevant ramblings.
Today's offering is all about our big ouchie last week.
I have bought myself a (second hand) electric bicycle to help with the hill *cough- mountain- cough* that we live on. And last Tuesday, after taking him to the baby playroom- and then him not wanting to go- we decided to go the park instead. I put him on my bike and the handlebars swung wildly around and the the whole thing fell over. Poor little Pi went chin first into the concrete.
I was rattled as hell as I picked him up and there was blood everywhere. Luckily, this happened about a kilometer away from my G.P. so I picked him up, grabbed my bag, abandoned my bike and the rest of the things in the basket, and ran to the doctors- all the while carrying my 13kg toddler in one arm, and the other with a facecloth desperately trying to stop the bleeding. We made it there and the doctor ushered us in right away. She was able to look at it, but as they are a smaller clinic, she could not treat him.
They called us a taxi to take us to a bigger clinic about 10 minutes drive away (while detouring home to get his health insurance card and other medical documents.).
Funnily enough we had been sent to this doctor a few days before to check out my husband's aching foot and were not that impressed with the doctor- a long wait, and then x-rays only to have his diagnosis of "your feet are foreign, and Japanese people don't have high arches like that, so it is probably a foreign problem....". With nothing else- not even a 'try RICE-ing it'. So I was not all that impressed with going back there.
We got there and apparently regardless of the fact that both me and my baby were covered in blood, and my baby was SCREAMING in pain- we waited in line like everyone else (none of whom were covered in blood). An hour and a bit later, the doctor finally saw us.
It was bad. He had split the skin on his chubby chin down to the bone. The doctor investigated and the insisted on showing me- so he pulled apart the skin again just for my benefit! I will say I have little problem with blood and gore- I have a MAJOR problem with causing my baby any more pain than necessary. Anyway...
He explained that it needed stitches, and that it is incredible painful without anesthetic, but young children can react dangerously so....- he explained it in such a roundabout way that I couldn't tell what he was going to do- use it, or not. In these situations, usually I just say "do your thing". However, I was not going to let him stitch without numbing the area first- so I called up my friend to double check what he was saying (my Japanese gets me far, but in some cases knowing 80% of what is going on isn't enough...).
Turns out he was going to use anesthetic, so we had to straight-jacket my baby by wrapping him in a towel tightly so he couldn't move his arms- then I climbed on top of him to pin him down to the bed- while three nurses held his head still for the doctor to inject... It was fairly traumatic for him, and me, but the job got done.
We then unwrapped him and I held him for 10 minutes for the anesthetic to kick in. Once it had, it was sausage baby time again, and back to all of us pinning him down. Then before the doctor did it, he investigated it again, and then got my attention saying "Mum, look" and then sticking his forceps all the way into the wound down the the bone- for my benefit! Pi was still screaming and distressed as hell, and all I was thinking was for the doctor to just fix him. I knew how serious it was, we were covered in blood.
He started stitching and the after about 2 minutes, he got a one of those surgical covers out- you know the kind that is like a huge sheet of green paper with a circle cut out of it, so they only see the wound area (there are pictures on google, but none without gross wounds so I won't post..). Needless to say, his face and body being covered freaked him out even more, and the damn doctor waited until Pi was loosing it like crazy, and wetting the sheet with tears sweat before he took it off. We finally thought the doctor was finished when he stopped, but had only finished with the internal stitches.
Long story short- many internal and external stitches, and a lot of trauma and tears later, and he was finally done. My bub passed out from exhaustion as soon as he last stitch was pulled through.
We had a course of antibiotics and some topical antibiotics, and we have been back to the doctors every second day to check on the stitches and make sure there is no infection. We change the dressing twice a day, and more if it becomes wet/soiled. He hates that.
I am about to go again to the doctors now to have them taken out. I really don't like this doctor, but sometimes I feel in Japan there isn't much of a choice.
Good luck little man...
