We'd had a few friends over for snacks and games the night before, and a couple of them had stayed over. We were all relaxing in the morning and having coffee and bagels, listening to music, watching silly YouTube clips, and being entertained by Lilah's endless antics. Our friend Mike followed Lilah up to her room and the happy pair were playing in her room. I can't remember what I was doing before. All I remember is hearing Lilah's cries, blinking, and being halfway up the stairs. I saw Mike holding Lilah in his arms and I took one look at her and knew something was wrong. She was squirming and screaming and I took her from him and walked back down the stairs to look at her more closely. I noticed that she didn't stop moving, like she was trying to get away from something. I'd seen that before in cases of extreme and persistent pain.
I looked her over and saw that the index finger of her right hand was dripping blood. I grabbed her by the wrist to assess it more closely while Mike explained that they had been playing peekaboo and Lilah's hand had gotten shut in her wooden bedroom door. It appeared she had tugged it free, resulting in nearly skinning her fingertip entirely. It was swollen to three times its normal size. It was purple, stiff, and dripping blood. The skin left on the fingertip was hanging by a flap. I just stared for a few seconds. Mike and Danielle sat on the couch staring at us. Dano was standing over me with a white face. I processed the following thoughts rather quickly and incoherently: stop bleeding, reduce swelling, soothe pain, calm down, keep Dano from having a panic attack, don't have a panic attack. My daughter was screaming inconsolably and writhing in my lap, trying to shake the pain from her hand and successfully making it worse. I kept a calm tone of voice and asked Dano to bring me my bin of medical supplies from the bathroom closet. I rummaged through the bin while talking to her and telling her I'd make it better and not to worry. She kept screaming. I washed it with saline and found Steristrips (kind of like artificial stitches). I Steristripped the flap of skin over the open tissue and lined the edges with Bacitracin ointment (think Neosporin). That controlled the bleeding. I looked over my pile of supplies and a stroke of genius flashed through my alarmingly clear mind. We had Orajel swabs. I broke the seal on one and blew into the open end to get the medication into the swab faster than gravity would allow it to drip, then covered the fingertip with it. Lilah stiffened and tried to pull away, screaming louder with every ministration. I wrapped the finger in gauze and held her hand while I looked for tape. I turned back to Lilah to see that she had pulled the dressing/ointment combination off with her teeth and had resumed screaming and waving her hand hysterically.
Dano said, "I know you're a nurse, but try a Bandaid. Maybe this won't work right now." I remember feeling white rage course through every capillary. Everyone else had frozen. Everyone else had sat there white-faced and horrified. It was my face and hands streaked with my baby's blood. Not theirs. No one had better start telling me what to try. I turned to Mike and Danielle and asked them to leave and go home. I asked Dano to get me an ice pack and go somewhere else to deal with his anxiety and leave me to deal with Lilah (still screaming, still flailing).
I held her down to ice her finger. That was actually worse, since she abhors being held down for anything. The finger looked better afterward, but I was still afraid she'd fractured or dislocated it. She wouldn't let me bend the joint without screaming harder and it was purple and edematous. The Orajel started to take effect and she quieted. I asked Dano to call the urgent care office and ask to speak to a nurse to see if we should bring her in. He dialed and had a short conversation, then hung up and relayed that all the nurses and MAs were busy, but the secretary had felt we should bring her in and stop the bleeding. The rage flared up again and I called back. Same secretary answered the phone. I wasn't about to have a woman without even the most basic first aid training give me medical advice about my baby. Working for a doctor doesn't give you any credentials. It gives you a paycheck.
"Hi, can I speak to someone who actually has some sort of medical training?"
"Yes, and I need to speak with someone qualified to judge whether or not I need to bring her in."
By the time we got to the office, Lilah asked to be put down to play with the trains. A MA came out to assess her and we were seen within minutes. The doctor commented that she didn't seem too bothered, and I explained in medical terms that I had essentially numbed the shit out of her entire finger. He said that was a wonderful idea, and she clearly wasn't in any pain. I gave her a graham cracker and she pointed to the doctor and said, "Doctor," then promptly started munching. After assessing her and asking us questions about how it had happened, he led us down to the corridor to get an x-ray. Dano waited while I went in. I told her that the lady was going to take a picture of her hand with a big camera, and she'd have to be very still on my for a few seconds. I positioned her hand on the table. "All done Mama!" She was trying to pull away.
"She needs to take your picture, darling. It won't take long." I pointed up to the camera for her to see.
"Camera, Mama?"
"Yep! Just a big camera, baby bird."
"Cheeeeeese!"
And it was over. Lilah and I walked around naming different bones and body parts while we waited for them to print out. I sneaked a peek at them and breathed a sigh of relief. The finger looked pretty good to me. We were led back to the exam room to wait for the doctor to read them. She was well into her second graham cracker and requested that we sing her a song. I started "June Hymn" and Dano joined in and Lilah was pleased. Then we sang her "Bandit Queen" (a song I've been singing to her since the day she was born) and we all laughed when we got to the line that said, "She ain't fancy, she ain't fine, and while her fingers number only nine, she's the belle of the ball of the insurgency." I returned to my normal mindset while we were singing and just reveled in the joy that was our family for a few verses. Dano and I sang to her while she weaved her body in a little dance and sang along with a smattering of Bapapapa's. It's a strange family but very beautiful and my saving grace. Colin Meloy's line to his pregnant wife came to mind from the song wonder: "My darling, what wonder have we wrought here? It's weird and it's wonderful, dear."
The doctor came back and told us to wrap it and put ointment on it every night while she slept, and ice it for 36 hours and she'd be as good as new. She'd only suffered soft tissue damage and traumatized the joint. He handed me a few samples of Bacitracin ointment and I smiled to myself, thinking about my stockpile at home. We went to Sonic and got Lilah a corndog. I went to work and she ate her corndog and watched the Secret of Kells with her daddy. To her, that was pretty much Christmas morning.
I came home from work tonight and finally had my breakdown from the day, sobbing for approximately 7 minutes. Lilah's already forgotten the whole thing.
