5 Ninjas, I tell you!

First was Dean, diving off the couch into the coffee table.

Next came Lael with her surgery in December.

Our newest member to join the "I've had stitches" Club is Grant.

Here he is waiting in the hall at Vanderbilt Children's hospital before being seen by the physician. At this point, a triage nurse had already taken his vitals and slathered on numbing gel and a protective cling film to hold it all in place. Obviously, he was in pretty good spirits and enjoying the fun of being in a wheelchair. This is before the nervousness over stitches sunk in.

How did it happen? Ugh. He and his cousin were in the back of a 15 passenger van that the seats had been taken out of. They had been helping Uncle Tim move things using the van like a truck. They were riding in the back, sitting on the wheel well, I think, when a turn or stop knocked them off balance. Grant's knee hit the latch that holds the seats, I think. Tore his knee wide open. Deep. Eric and I got the call that he'd been hurt badly and that they were coming to us. It was Saturday night at about 5:45pm. No doctor's offices were open. No urgent care. But when Grant arrived, and we could see it in person, we realized that the E.R. would have been the only option regardless of timing. It was pretty bad, and wasn't bleeding.

Of course, at that moment, I was covered in paint painting the girls' room. Eric took Grant to Vandy, I got cleaned up and put all the paint away then my brother-in-law, my nephew and I headed there as well.

Grant was quite brave, and handled it like a champ. We used good breathing techniques, my silent prayers, and pep talks from Dad to mentally get past the fear of being stitched up. The gel was AMAZING. The doctor said a lot of children can be stitched up without ever getting a shot. Grant was still feeling things, though, so he had a number of numbing shots in addition to the gel. Our physician was a plastic surgeon who was extremely careful to match the skin nicely (how good to be in the right place at the right time!). I think it was about 30 minutes of stitching for the nine stitches. It only took until stitch number 7 before Grant relaxed and commented "I can believe him (the doctor), Mom, he really is going to tell me what he's doing and it really doesn't hurt!". After we finished, Uncle Tim had a double decker taco all ready for the wounded boy and we made our way to Maggie Moos!

Because the story of how things happened is less than wonderful (no one likes admitting that their child was not strapped in while driving), and its certainly not a daring adventure type of injury, Eric helped Grant develop a story to tell others. Grant seems to be more into relaying the truth to everyone, so he might not tell you about successfully fighting off 5 ninjas and walking away with only a nick from a stray ninja star. Oh well.