I wonder how many more ER visits we have in store for us....

So, we've realized Gennie's been really easy on us. In 6 years we've never had to take her to the ER, and she's hardly been to the doctor other than well-baby check-ups and, of course, that random bout of Mono. Oh, and there was this unfortunate encounter with a mosquito on crack:

However, we've not been so lucky with Josiah. He had an emergency trip to the ER when he was just 5 months old - RSV - and now every time he gets a cold out comes the breathing machine and the albuterol treatments. He's been to the dr for ear infections and bronchitis numerous times.

And this past weekend we took our second trip to the ER:

We had a workday at church last Saturday and were just finishing up for the day with a pizza lunch. The kids were done eating and back outside playing while the adults visited. All the sudden, Gennie comes running across the parking lot, screaming hysterically, "My brother's BL-EEEEEEE-DING!!!" We ran outside just as Josiah was coming out of the shed, blood running all down his hand and arm. In a flurry of tears and antiseptic and bandaids the guys got him calmed down enough to finish cleaning up the workday, but the bleeding would not stop. (On an entirely disgusting note - he has an exceptionally strong heartbeat, which was demonstrated by the spurting from the cut.) So we took a trip to the ER in Rock Springs.

He was a great patient, considering what he'd been through and all without a nap. He was most excited when they gave him the clicker to control the TV, but had a hard time remembering not to push the red call-button.

The dr said it was a clean cut and serious enough to require stitches, but that the trauma of the anesthesia shots to numb it would be worse than the cut itself so she put the flap back together with Steri-Strips and a huge gauze bandage. She said he's for sure going to have a scar (but what boy doesn't want a cool, gnarly scar to show off?) and might lose the fingernail, or at least the part that was cut through, but that it should be better in 10 days or so.

Oh, and the fact that we have no idea what he cut it on really didn't instill trust in us with the ER personnel. We told the ladies at the front desk that we didn't know how he did it, the triage nurse, the nurse who took us back to the room, the two different nurses who came in to check on us while we were in the room, and the front desk lady (who we had already told) again when she came in to finalize the paperwork. I'm sure CPS loves to hear about parents whose kids mysteriously gash themselves and the parents can't explain it. But when we had gathered him up and got the crying to stop at the church, Kev and the others checked out the shed to see if they could find what had done the damage. He left quite an obvious trail coming out of the shed and there was a bigger pool of drops in one spot so we guess that's where it started. But without CSI equipment I doubt we'll ever know what did the gashing. Several times throughout the day we asked him what happened but all he would say was, "I can't know."

Anyway, we got out of the ER in record time: 2 hours total. Now we get to try and keep a bandage clean on a 2 year old boy for 10 days and watch for infection . . . and the bill.

And even in the midst of the trauma he was classic Josiah. When Jared and Grandaddy and Kev got him inside and over to the sink to clean off the drippy-ness and try to stop the bleeding, he told Grandaddy through the tears, "I not do that again."