Splinter

1-15-13

My child’s screams will live on in nightmares for people there last night.

Dax is a spirited kid. He doesn’t half ass any of his emotions. There is no fake enthusiasm or sucking it up for him. If he is happy, you know it and can’t help but feel happy, too. If he is upset, be prepared to feel it yourself down to your very soul.

His splinters from Sunday remained embedded in his finger. After multiple attempts to remove it on Sunday, we gave up since his screams and sheer panic even when he saw the tweezers was too much for us to deal with any further. He would freak out so much that he was breaking out into a sweat despite the frigid temperatures. We knew that we could not ignore it, though. It had to come out. When we inspected it yesterday you could see the infection starting to set in on the worse of the two.

I tried to remove the smaller one. It had finally peeked its head out enough that I was confident I could remove it. Sadly, Dax was less confident in my ability. He couldn’t hold still even long enough for me to get close to it. It was a frustrating match between two incredibly stubborn people. I was angry and sadly took out this on him in the form of what only seemed like torture I am sure. Ken had to pull me aside to try to back down a bit.

Finally, after Ken tried a bit, we determined this would not happen at home. Our scare tactics of telling him a doctor would need to be brought in were balked at and we had to go with our threat. We headed out for the urgent care facility at about 4:30.

He seemed all kinds of brave and I think even the doctor was laughing at us internally when he was told that all that was needed was a splinter removal. Here is a doc probably more accustomed to more significant injuries for an after-hours facility. He would be proven wrong very quickly.

In all fairness, the doctor certainly tried to not have to go to the big guns. He was very kind and calm, trying to talk Dax into holding still long enough to remove the wood from his finger. He tried using the cold spray on his finger, which seemed like a good plan but ended up causing more hollering. The doctor decided it was time.

I had the task of holding Dax down. This meant comforting him, and making sure his legs didn’t give the doctor a concussion in the midst of their flailing. Ken had to hold his hand and arm still so that the doctor could inject the anesthetic into his finger.

Last night, I am sure you all felt the disturbance in the force.

Thankfully during his screams, I learned from my mistake earlier. I didn’t have my ear directly in the line of fire. My ears were ringing for a while.

Once the needle was removed from his finger and the doctor had left the room for a bit, Dax finally calmed down. He was able to sit up and even drink some water. The numbing agent kicked in pretty quickly, and he thought it was pretty funny how odd his finger felt. The doctor came back in and proceeded to remove the debris. The first splinter was in fact very easy. The second one required a scalpel to dislodge it. Thankfully Dax didn’t feel any of this. He and I didn’t watch as the doctor was concerned if Dax saw what was going on that he would flip out despite the numbness. Ken told me after that there was a significant amount of pus involved. The doctor assured us he would be ok, but it doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t have gotten worse had we not taken care of it when we did.

I do not care for these medical oddities that Dax seems to attract. They are exhausting. They also seem to fuck with schedules being that this little adventure meant that my house still looks as though we are only just moving in what with all of the chaos in the living room. I look forward to the afternoon when I can start to put my house back in some kind of order.