It all started on the Saturday evening of April 24th. We had a fun day and were winding down the days festivities of yard work, cleaning the garage, and playing outside. When I decided since it's Saturday I'll throw McKinley in the tub while the other two pick up their toys and put them away, then they can have a bath and then dinner and off to bed by 8:30! Fabulous!
So I send Daniel to the Jr. High to the recycle dumpsters, since our paper recycling box is overflowing.
I barely get McKinley's naked body in the tub, when Madison comes in and tells me Carter is hurt. Now those of you who know Carter, this is an every 20 minute phrase...mom, me hurt myself....dad, me hurt myself.....and you get the picture. So I tell Madison, he's fine, just tell him to jump up and brush it off.
She replies with...No mom, he's really hurt.
Madison! he'll be fine, I'm giving McKinley a bath, he'll be okay.
No mom, he's bleeding.....and that's when I hear the wailing!
He comes around the corner into the bathroom and he is spurting blood from his face! I'm serious..it was SPURTING! Those of you who know me, this is the time that I pass out and come to thinking it was all a dream. No, I was BRAVE! I grab a towel and shove it on to his face...(Daniel later chastises me for grabbing a huge bath towel, but hey I wasn't thinking..."let me get a washcloth, that will be easier to transport" at least I wasn't on the floor!) I hand Madison my cell phone and tell her to call dad. I pick Carter up and try calming him down, but that's a no go. So I take him down the stairs and set him on the porch and tell him to watch for Daddy. Meanwhile Madison is telling Daniel to come home and I'm screaming at her to tell him to come home NOW! And yes McKinley is alone in the tub. I race back upstairs grab another towel, dry her off, grab some jammies and am shoving her little body into them as fast as possible when Daniels screeches to a halt in the front of the house.
He tells the kids to load into the car. He grabs a washcloth and exchanges our extra long bath towel for it. I throw McKinley in her seat and strap her. Madison is being so brave and is talking to Carter. And we head to the hospital with Carter going pale in my arms. On the way Daniel asks if I called my mom?....what you think I thought of that, no I am freaking out! I'm not thinking ahead of what we are going to do with the two girls! Sheesh, I'm barely standing myself!
Needless to say my knight in shining armor came to the rescue and whisked us off to the hospital, called my mom, and handled the blood, so I didn't have to. My Hero!
Daniel drops me and Carter off at the door for Davis Hospital...(BIG mistake...never go there!)and goes to park the car while we get checked in. As soon as we have shut the door Madison bursts into tears. She is so worried about Carter! And she held out her brave face until we weren't there, how sweet is that?!
My mom meets us at the emergency room. And her and my sisters talk to Carter and then take the two girls home. I'm so thankful for them and being there so they weren't traumatised anymore than they already were. (Poor Madison!)
We wait and wait and wait, and finally they call us back. When the doctor finally comes in most of the bleeding (spurting) has stopped and we are watching TV. The rest I don't know about, it's just what Daniel has told me because I knew he would have to have stitches and I knew I couldn't handle it, so I left and stood out in the hallway...not a fabulous choice since I could hear him screaming and crying, but at least I didn't have to watch it.
So while I'm in the hallway, the doctor gives him a shot to numb it and it's also to make it stop bleeding. Well it did just the opposite, it made it start bleeding again! Daniel is having to lay on top of him so that the doctor could make tiny stitches so it wouldn't leave a train track scar on his face. The nurse is trying to blot away the blood, which has begun spurting again. Finally, it seemed like an eternity, I'm allowed back into the room. However they had not cleaned up so there was a TON of bloody gauze's strewn allover. And there sits Carter sobbing in his daddy's arms. I'm feeling slightly queasy, since we hadn't eaten, and from all the blood and trauma.
Yes we are finally leaving the hospital at 11:30pm! What a night. Yet to only have it continue into today!
As we were being discharged we asked if we needed to clean it or what care needed to be taken to prevent infection. The doctor said none, lacerations and sutures on the face rarely get infected because our face is clean.
Have you ever met a 3 year old with a clean face!?!?
So today I was concerned after I got home from work because his stitches were oozing blood. So I called our pediatrician, and he said they shouldn't be oozing blood and to go back to the emergency room to have it taken care of.
So my sisters come and get the girls again, and I call Daniel and let him know what's going on, and my mother accompanies me to the hospital with Carter.
Carter is terrified! Sobbing that he doesn't want to go to the doctor's again. We get into a room, and this time we have a different doctor, but the same nurse. The nurse was wonderful, he apologized and was so sorry that we were back in again. The doctor comes and looks at it, and says it looks fine and sutures tend to ooze a little since you basically stab little holes in your skin from stitching them up. Then he puts his finger in Carter's mouth and presses against his stitches. Then he squeezes with his other hand on the outside of Carter's mouth right along his stitches. And then he pushes and squeezes at the same time and pops out the infection like a zit! This huge amount of pus springs from his face, Carter is screaming, I barely make it to a chair before all the color drains from my face and I collapse. My mom is holding Carters hands and the nurse is helping hold Carter's head still as the Doctor continues to push and squeeze until all the infection is out. He then gives us a prescription for an antibiotic, and tells us to come on Saturday to remove the stitches instead of Friday. Since there was infection he should keep the stitches a day longer.
This was a horrible experience to say the least. We had the home teaches come over to give Carter a blessing Sunday night and Carter went into a fit, crying that he didn't want the doctor to touch him. I feel so bad for my little guy.
It came to a total of nine stitches.
How did he do this, you ask? Well from what Madison and he has told us (remember that neither parent saw what happened) He was running toward the house and tripped and slammed his face into the cement steps leading in to the house.
So here's the pics....
We tease that he looks like the Joker
He is not happy that I am taking pictures, but it's a first and probably not the last.
My brave little guy!
So that was our exciting weekend, which I never want to repeat, ever! He's a trooper, and has had moments (very few...so far) that he thinks it's cool to have stitches. Maybe in a few days it will be cool.
Until the next post.....we'll try to stay safe :)
A view from the hike. You have to love the Mountains! 
Some of the activities we did were provided by the camp. They said they had a low level confidence course and so we scheduled time to participate on the four courses. It was amazing the growth the girls made in a matter of a few hours. Given a choice I would go back to this camp again and again. First up we had the Cable Walk. A cable was connected to trees about 18 inches off the ground. And you had to get your entire team to the end with out touching the ground. It was very tricky. 
The next part of the course was the climbing wall. I'm not going to lie, there were some girls that you might call athletically challenged. I didn't know if they would make it. But with a lot of teamwork, leader support EVERY girl made it up the climbing wall. 
We also had people come to talk to us, Daniel was one of them. It was a great talk 
We also learned a lot of this.... 
The next course was the Spider's Web. Where you had to get every person in your group through a different hole while not talking. 
The last course was the Giant's Thumb. You had to take the tire off the giant pole without you or the tire touching the pole. 
Here are our priesthood leaders helping with the zip line....this is where you crash at the end. 
It was a blast! Everyone had so much fun on the zip line. Everyone got to ride it 3 times. 
This is how much crazy fun we had. This is the name of our campsite. 
Our Last day....sad....wait...WAHOO! 
It was a lot of hard work poured into 4 days but it was worth it. I hope the girls felt the spirit and had fun, I know I did. The only thing I didn't like was missing Madison's first day of First Grade. Hopefully Mom took pictures. Maybe Daniel will post about the spiritual part of girls camp, I'm too close to it right now to be objective. Anyways... Until the next post....
