Afternoon at the Instacare

So this morning my wonderful mother came up to my house to watch and play with my kids so I could get some things unpacked and some chores done around the house. First of all, a couple days ago, Nolan began installing our R.O. (reverse osmosis) water filtration system under the kitchen sink. Well when he got to a certain point, he clamped down on one pipe in particular and it just buckled under the pressure. It was an old metal pipe and apparently it was pretty rusted and rotted out. So he went to Home Depot to get things to fix it, but problem after problem continued to arise. In total there ended up being about 5 or 6 trips made to the Home Depot. Because of the delay, I was not able to use my kitchen sink for about a day and a half. Well, with 2 kids and, at the very least, three meals and three snacks during the day, by this morning there was a HUGE mess to clean up.
So I tackled that while my mom took the kids on a walk and to a local playground. Time just flew by and before I knew it, they were back and my mom informed me that she had already been here for three and a half hours and it was getting close to the time she needed to leave. I couldn't believe it! All I had accomplished was the enormous kitchen mess. Oh well. At least it was done and I could put Gunnar down for his nap and put a movie on for Sienna and then I could try to start unpacking boxes....Or so I thought!
About 5 minutes after my mom left, I heard a huge THUD followed immediately by Sienna screaming very intensely. Sienna has the tendency to sometimes whine and "fake" cry when she bumps into stuff of gets mildly hurt. But this sounded more intense. I was trying not to panic, and I gave her a hug and asked her what happened. She continued shrieking and said she hurt her head on the wall downstairs. I said everything would be fine and let me just look at it so I can kiss it better. I looked at her head and my heart sank! I saw an enormous gash in the back of her head about half way down. The cut was about and inch long and very deep. There was blood pouring out of it and dripping down her shirt. I ran her into the bathroom and put her head into the tub. I told her we needed to wash it off a little so I could look at it better. Well when I looked at it better, my heart began racing. It looked terrible.
I grabbed a towel and put it on her head and told her to keep pressure on it. I grabbed my purse and Gunnar and told Sienna we needed to go right now. She asked me where we were going and I told her we needed to go to the hospital so a doctor could help fix her head. Instead of a hospital we actually ended up at the I.H.C. Instacare right up the street from us. They took us right back and got going on the procedures. Things calmed down a little at that point, but Gunnar was extremely ornery and tired. He kept whining and telling me he wanted to go home and go to bed. I wanted it too. The nurse was really nice and got some big Legos for him to play with.
Sienna was so brave throughout the whole ordeal. They numbed the area with a topical gel first and then waited for it take effect before administering the local anesthetic through the needle. It took two nurses and myself to hold her down while the doctor did this part. Poor little girl! Tears sprang to my eyes as my little baby girl pleaded for us to stop. We kept explaining to her that it was almost over and to hold really still so we didn't have to start over. Finally the pain subsided and she relaxed. When the doctor began putting the stitches in, she asked him if he was putting a ponytail in her hair, because that is what it felt like. That made me smile. The total tally of stitches came to a grand total of SEVEN!
Finally all was done and I treated my little angel to some chicken nuggets and ice cream. (Gunnar got some ice cream too for trying to be patient even though he was sooo tired!) She kept telling everyone we saw (at the drive through and such) that she hit her head and it bled all over the place and that she had to get stitches. Plus, as per the doctor's orders, she got to spend the entire afternoon lying down and watching all her favorite movies. When we got home, she actually bumped the back of her head while turning around. I told her she needed to watch very carefully where her head was going for the next few days.
I know this turned out to be not so serious, but I had never dealt with this before. This was my very first emergency trip for stitches or emergency care for one of my kids. I am so grateful that this did not end up being worse.