A couple weeks ago I suffered some sort of curse that heavily resembled food poisoning. I thought maybe I had the flu but I live with 4 other people and none of them even sort of caught what I had. It all went down on a Friday. I slept most of Saturday and in to Sunday forcing Drew to take the kids to hours and hours of swim lessons without me.
As I was snoozing away, Drew called and asked me to bring the insurance cards to him because Caleb took a tumble and possibly needed sewn back up. I called my parents on the way and they sat with the older two while Bennett finished his lesson and we whisked Caleb off to the Pediatric ER at Lutheran Hospital where we received the most excellent care by their lovely staff. Six stitches later we all realized that the same doctor doing Caleb’s fixer upper is who put Anna’s elbow back together when she was 5 or so.
The flu and your five year old getting stitches is a lot in one weekend.
Some other things happened that aren’t my story to tell.
Taxes happened – the government hates us for being financially responsible.
Then Tuesday night Anna got the incessant cough. Bennett has been coughing for weeks but it doesn’t effect his sleep. Anna is the opposite. We were up all night with her trying all the tricks. I decided not to send her to school on Wednesday. I had a plan of working Wednesday night, extra hours Thursday, and extra hours Friday so that I didn’t have to use vacation time to stay home (I went full time at the Y in January but my sick days haven’t kicked in yet). Around lunch time on Wednesday she wasn’t looking so good so I took her temp at it was 103.7. Drew was able to take a vacation day Thursday and stay home so I could stay on track with my hours.
So on Thursday I took the boys to school and went to work while Drew stayed home with Anna trying to get her fever down. I met some of the administrative assistants from other Y’s in town at a restaurant for lunch. We were updating each other on our lives since the last time we had lunch and my phone rang: the school. I assumed one of the boys had picked up Anna’s germs. Wrong. I was not prepared for what they told me:
“Hi Carrie, Bennett got his finger stuck in a bench at recess. We can’t get it out so we’ve called the fire department. Can you run over real quick and maybe help us calm him down a little bit so we can get it out?”
Of course I was across town and not across this street.
As I drove the, I don’t know, 8 minutes, to the school my mind kind of went nuts. Why didn’t I ask questions? What did any of this even mean? Does he still have a finger? What bench? Is their blood? WHAT IS HAPPENING??
Sure enough. His finger was stuck. He was pretending to be a cat walking across the bench and his one finger just slipped in the hole and got stuck. He said his fingers have gone in their before but they always come out. THIS KID HAS THE LONGEST SKINNIEST FINGERS. What is happening? Look at these fingers:
They tried soap, hand sanitizer, windex, the string trick. Nothing would work. It was swollen and freezing cold and NOTHING WOULD WORK. They turned the bench on it’s side so he could sit and try to elevate his finger to see if the swelling would go down. Nothing. So they got out the bolt cutters and cut a little square out of the bench so he could go inside. We tried soaking it to see if we could get it to prune and slide out. Nope. It just kept swelling. The one fire fighter wasn’t happy with the color of his finger so Drew brought sick little Anna to the school and we prepared to head back to the ER.
Let me just say, these firefighters were the best. Fire Station 1. The teachers and administrators at the school were the best. They tried their bests for so long. I’m so grateful for them all.
So Drew gets Benny buckled in and I took Anna to my dad, who was getting off work shortly, and he brought her back to our house. Caleb stayed at school. I arrive to the ER and WE HAD THE SAME DOCTOR! Her name is Stephanie and she’s amazing. There was also another guy who was helping her, Elisha.
They tried soap, sanitizer, cleaner, and the string trick. They tried the ring cutter and just couldn’t get it in there because of the swelling.
So, how did we get his finger unstuck? The Lutheran Hospital Maintenance guy, Dave. He used a dremel to cut the piece of bench down enough that Elisha could get a better angle with the ring cutter. The orthopedic doctor came and checked on his finger and said it looked okay. They worked slowly but surely with the dremel and a bucket of ice to cool it off when it got too hot. Finally, after 3-4 hours, the finger was free. It’s fine – not even sore.
What.In.The.Actual.
Also, back track for a second, my mom and I put together a group of women to do a Bible study. The plan was to have it at our house Thursdays at 6:30. We were already scrambling to relocate because of Anna’s fever. Then the whole bench finger thing. I was beat. BUT – ain’t no one gonna hold me down, oh no, I had to keep on moving.
What could be more relaxing that a hot cup of tea during Bible study? I boiled that water and got my tea going in my insulated travel mug to steep while I made the drive to my friend Amy’s house. I turned a corner and half of the boiling hot tea spilled in my seat. While I was driving through traffic. I had to just keep going. My leg hurt so, so bad. I had a couple of burns but nothing requiring medical attention. Thankfully Amy and I wear the same sized sweat pants and I could borrow hers when I got there.
BUT COME ON.
It’s weird to be in a place where all of these dumb things keep happening but nothing is actually that bad, ya know? I eventually stopped puking, Caleb’s leg healed, we had the money to pay the taxes, Anna’s fever will go away, Bennett still has a finger, and my burn isn’t debilitating. Even if I have a scar, it’s on my butt. Haha. But I am tired.
I am so grateful for my boss and everyone at the Y who is so flexible and supportive and concerned about my little family. I am so thankful for the staff at the Pediatric ER at Lutheran….and oddly enough, for their maintenance department. I am thankful for the Firefighters in this town, who I’ve spent more time with that I’d like, no offense. And the faculty and staff at St. Paul’s – I’m beyond thankful for every single one of them. You guys, my parent’s, I don’t even know how many times they’ve dropped everything to come help. We are so fortunate to have them so close and so willing to be there for us. Drew, my voice of reason when I’m losing my mind…how could I do life without him? My friend Amy, who just stepped up and rearranged everything so Bible study could go on and she was just here: take these pants and I put a towel in your van and my daughter is on her way with ice packs. I am blessed, for sure.
And God. I’m just so so so…thankful for my faith in God. How do you even have hope when it seems like everything is going so wrong if you don’t have Jesus?
So all that to say…don’t feel bad for me, for us. We’re all okay. It’s just a lot and I mostly wanted to document it. This story was not Facebook post length.
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