Staples

On Saturday, Nov 17, I was trying once again to prepare for the talk I was assigned to give the following day. As had happened every day that week, I woke up (extra) early to study and prepare and my girls woke up then too. When Keith returned from his morning run I realized my time to prepare my talk was over and I had accomplished nothing of significance. Being the mature, logical person that I am I instantly started to cry. Keith, being the wonderful husband he is, whisked the kids away, got everyone ready and fed and then left the house to give me some quiet time.

 

First Keith took the girls to play ‘softball’ with some old church friends in Maricopa. Then he took everyone to the park. At the park Savannah decided to show her Daddy a new trick she had learned. She learned that she could hold on to the vertical barrier bars and step off of any ledge. Her hands would ‘slowly’ move down the vertical bars leaving her feet just a foot or so above the ground where she could then jump/fall off in relative safety.

 

However, some things didn’t go as she expected. First of all, we’d been to a park where the ledge she enjoyed jumping off of was 2-3 feet high, this one was closer to 4. Also, for whatever reason, her head must have been tilted a little bit back as it hit the ‘diving board’ on the way down.

 

I was back home enjoying my peace and quiet and had just finished my talk when I got a phone call from Keith asking where the closest Urgent Care was that took our new insurance.

 

Keith spent the next two hours waiting at the Maricopa Urgent Care and three staples later was sent home with instructions to keep it clean and have the staples removed at any medical facility in 5-7 days.

 

Two days later, on Monday, we went to the park and had a wonderful time. I watched her like a hawk and she didn’t even attempt her new trick.

 

When we got home there was enough peace I was able to pick up my book for a few minutes of relaxation. Savannah climbed on the couch with me but was quickly bored and in her attempt to get off she rolled off the footrest and landed on her back. The sound of her head hitting the tile was muffled only by a piece of paper. Miraculously she cried for a few minutes but was totally fine.

 

Shortly after I was preparing lunch when Rachel climbed into Savannah’s chair and started eating something. I moved her over as I wanted Savannah strapped firmly into whatever elevated platform she had to be on, even if it was just a chair. As I was moving Rachel Savannah started climbing into a different chair and mid-climb leaned over to steal some of whatever Eliza was eating (leftover cereal from breakfast?). Of course, as I was moving Rachel to a different place, I had just set Rachel in between me and Savannah and although I highly suspected that Savannah’s rather typical behavior would end awry today I was powerless to do anything about it before Savannah crashed to the floor.

 

Sure enough, after her cries calmed down enough for me to move I noticed we were both covered in blood. When I cleaned everything up I realized the staples were all still in place so I decided we didn’t need to go into the doctor.

 

I had great intentions of calling the doctor at the beginning of the week, but it just slipped by me. The Friday after Thanksgiving I called our pediatrician and unsurprisingly they were closed for the weekend. I didn’t think much of it and waiting until Monday. Their next available appointment was Wednesday and although they sounded like that was a long time away no one offered any alternatives nor was it even suggested that something else should be done.

 

On Wednesday, November 28, I went to our appointment and the doctor immediately seemed concerned it had been so long, but said we’d probably be fine. She was easily able to take out two of the staples, but the third one caused more difficulty. They even brought in a nurse to help me hold Savannah down as she was very unhappy.

 

She kept getting two of the three pronged tool in a usable position which twisted the staple instead of bending it into the shape needed for removal. She thought she had just cut through the staple and she tried to remove each half with tweezers. They were not pulling out.

 

She said she was traumatizing Savannah too much and felt it would be better to have a surgeon with some local anesthetic take it out and she set us up with a doctor at Banner Estrella ER.

 

We then had another appointment with a different doctor to see Eliza so it was about a half hour – 45 minutes later that we pulled out of the pediatrician’s office and drove the 10 minutes to the ER. At this time Banner Estrella is constructing some parking garages and has closed most of their parking lots. This meant I drove around for about 10 minutes looking for a spot until I found someone leaving and waited for them to back out. My parking spot – which was I was very grateful to have – was about a 3-5 minute walk to the ER entrance.

 

Honestly, the ER waiting game was much shorter than I could have imagined and they even gave us some gramcrackers for my now very hungry children. It took the ER nurse about 5 minutes to realize the doctor had turned the staple around so instead of the staple being cut, we were looking at the bottom of the staple. This also explains why Savannah was so upset when the doctor had tried to pull out each half of the staple. The ER nurse turned it around (yes, that was very painful for poor Savannah who, although very upset, did do a remarkable job) and was quickly able to get it out.

 

We then spent 15-20 minutes singing “The Wheels on the Bus”, “Head Shoulders Knees and Toes”, a bathroom trip, and making faces at all of the doctors walking by trying to make them laugh (they succeeded with about three) while we waited for the doctor to come in and verify that all was good and then pay our $75 co-pay.

 

Now we are gratefully staple-free. After lunch both Savannah and Mommy got a very well deserved nap (while Eliza and Rachel – who also did a remarkably good job the whole time – watched Christmas cartoons and played "my baby got staples stuck in her head and we need another doctor to get it out").