Yesterday, I was running at a friend's house (thanks again Savages), as the wind was blowing and I ABHOR running in the wind and wanted to get it done a little bit quicker than I would street running. Lilly was playing with all the big toys around the room (this is where she goes for "daycare" 1-2 days a week, so she is very "at home" in this area) and I wasn't thinking much of it. I saw her heading to the rear of the treadmill and all of a sudden I heard her start screaming. Earlier in the week, she had done something similar, but it was when she had seen a spider at Grandma's house. Anyway, I immediately stopped and she started yelling about her hand.
I won't sicken you with the details, but suffice it to say that she was missing some layers of skin on her left middle and ring fingers. There wasn't a lot of blood, so that was nice. I immediately ran it under cold water to relieve the burning she must have been feeling. That definitely brought relief--I could tell because she was willing to continue with it. :-) Pret was at the gym (at the point in his workout that I knew he would be showering, so there was no way to get in touch with him), so I did some quick thinking of where I could take her for some advice on what to do. I felt bad as I left the toys a mess and strewn about the room, but my care instincts had kicked into high alert.
We jumped in the car (thankfully, they are literally around the corner from our house) and I first drove by the friend in the ward who is an ER nurse at Primary Children's Hospital, but they were not home, sadly. Then, I went to the friend three houses up the street who is an ICU nurse and asked him what to do. He said to just keep it on ice as much as possible and monitor it for color changes. I got home and immediately had her immerse it in an ice water bath. She was really good about keeping it in there. Also got some medicine in her right away. She was still pretty hysterical and the only thing that eventually calmed her down (similar to the last time she was sick) was watching the Primary Songs video we have on an app on the iPad. Thank goodness for those soothing, habitual songs that bring so much peace and comfort to so many, young and old!
Pret returned home soon after and we both agreed to just keep it as cold as possible (to keep the swelling down) and just monitor. Our friend Toffer also came over, and they gave her a blessing. It was quite comforting. She was so tired; she wouldn't let me leave her side. My plans to go to the General Women's Conference downtown with a friend were quickly put aside. I look forward to watching it still, but it will have to wait--family does come first. Lilly kept dozing off and on, but dutifully kept her hand in the ice bath as much as she could. Eventually, as she kept wanting to sleep, we decided to just lightly put a cold, wet washcloth on her hand so she could lay down. She never went back to sleep, but just rested quietly watching Pocahontas and Pocahontas II on the iPad.
We realized we would eventually have to wrap her finger to keep them from getting infected as she slept, so we slowly started introducing the idea to her so she would be more willing when the time came. As we prepared for that, though, Pret wanted a second opinion on what to do, so we called Meggan, our ped's ER nurse friend, and she came over. After much deliberation, they decided it was probably best to have her go to the ER so that they could give the referral to the wound/burn center for follow-up. We are all a bit worried about how it will heal and not loosing the movement in her fingers or having it heal in a way that her fingers will be permanently bent.
So up to the ER at Primary Children's we headed. It was 8:15 on Saturday night, so we had no idea what it would be like up there. Thankfully, it all went amazingly quickly and well. I did not even have a chance to sit down from the time we walked in until we sat down in the room. Even then, I don't know that it was much more than about 5 minutes before the nurses/doctors were in the room to check her out. It was amazing. They felt similarly, that there was not much to do at that point beyond just wrapping it carefully, doing exercises that forces her to straighten her fingers, and then return to the burn center on Monday. They called over there and we will go tomorrow to see what other recommendations they have. We are guessing there will be a little bit of physical therapy to make sure that it all heals correctly. They had a wonderful lady there who was able to distract Lilly from what was going on by watching "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood" and discussing characters, plot, etc. After, they rewarded her with a disgusting orange slushy, but it appeased her for a time. All in all, we left the ER less than an hour after we checked in--not too bad.
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| Happy with her "Buzz Bee" glove and slushy on the ER table |
Anyway, today she has been as happy as can be. And very proudly showed off her "Buzz Bee" to anyone who would see at church. She is nervous about us changing the wrapping on it, so we'll see how that goes down a bit later.
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| Enjoying "Daniel Tiger" and chocolate milk for breakfast |
