There is one in every generation

I know that my life has been shortened by years, if not decades being Scott's sister, Paulie's cousin, Uncle Tom's niece...there is one in every generation.

Well, I always knew it would happen. I just didn't know where or when, or even to an extent WHO.

James.

Figures. Easiest delivery, messiest childhood. I have had inklings for years...

Okay, sit back. Grab a cup of joe, some iced tea, or a tall glass of water. It's a bumpy ride and we'll be here for awhile...this narrative is of a graphic nature, rest assured that James is fine.

James has chronic bloody noses. The kid can't look in the mirror without giving himself one. Took him to the doctor and found out that he has a blood vessel really close to the inner surface. They can do surgery, sometimes they just get tougher with age. Doctor Kilker's recommendation is to wait it out. If the bloody noses get worse, then we'll do a consult for surgery.

Okay. No biggie. We take care of them calmly and quickly. J knows the drill. Don't put the head too far back because it could clot in your airway. Don't put the head forward because it could cause lack of oxygen to the brain and you'll pass out. Keep your head straight, ice the top of the nose/sinus while you pinch it "just right" and it will stop in under 15 minutes. Don't pinch too hard, because "it hurts!"

So, yesterday was a good day. Jon's day off of work, drove out to pick up his last Steak N Shake check. We are gonna order pizzas for the kids and have a little "family night". Get home. 4PMish. Lisa says, "J, Shawn, and Drew (our neighbor's son) are down at the park sledding." Moments later, Shawn bursts in crying. He ran up from the park because, "J's nose is bleeding." We didn't even blink an eye...I just sighed and being practical and not wanting to drive down there, I handed Jon a blue hand towel and asked him to go and get J for me. Sure, no problem. He starts walking down there and then tells Shawn to jump in his truck.

J gets back up here and I FREAKED OUT! The towel I sent with Jon is TOTALLY COVERED IN BLOOD. Well, after I ran over to him to help with the bleeding...I could see that it was a RED glove on his nose. Oy. J is chanting quietly, "I am dying. I am dying. I am dying." I reassured him that he was not dying.

Okay, so I pull the red glove off of his nose, expecting a bloody nose.

I often look back on a moment during a crisis when I click into my military mode. Where you want to assess the situation, determine the outcome of forty different plans, decide on a mode of attack, and then GO GO GO!

This is that moment.

I pull the red glove off of his nose, expecting a bloody nose. I was not prepared for his nose hanging off of his face. I immediately jumped a little into "panic" mode, that 10-15 seconds where you don't know WHICH direction to go first. My words were calm and matter-of-fact.

"Okay, we are taking a trip to the hospital."

While Lisa got ready to drive me, I took J over to the sink to triage the situation. I cleaned up his hands. He is still chanting, "I am dying" over and over interspersed with, "I am never sledding ever again". I reassured him that he was not, in fact, dying. He was bleeding. I couldn't tell WHERE he was bleeding yet, but he was definitely bleeding. I cleaned up his hands, no cuts. I cleaned up his chin, small scrape. His top lip was swollen over his bottom lip. His bottom lip was swollen so that it was pushing against his top lip. His nose was split from the inside of his left nostril about an inch over his right nostril. Okay, as far as I can tell, he is bleeding from his nose. He has smashed up his lips and chin pretty well, but there is no bleeding from anything other than his nose and that isn't bleeding anywhere near as bad as it does when he has a bloody nose, so that is good.

Okay, hand towel, ice, purse for insurance cards, J, Lisa, me, head screwed on, off we go to the hospital.

I have now assured James that if he were, in fact, "dying" we wouldn't be driving him to the hospital, we would have called an ambulance. So, if he ever hurts himself badly enough to need an ambulance, then he might be "dying" but not now.

All I know at this point is that he fell off the sled.

After an hour long wait to be seen where we were sitting in the waiting room. James has a wet bloody rag covering his bag of ice, SHIELDING his face from the people there, because he looked "gross and disgusting".

They finally see him. After another hour of hurry up and wait. The first doctor passed him off to the second doctor. She wants to run a cat scan. J wanted to know what kind of cat they used.

We get into the room for the cat scan and it looks like a giant donut. I told J that he was getting a donut scan...he's still looking for the cat.

J lays perfectly still. Then he has to do the scan on his belly with his chin resting on the tray. When she is aligning him, they use a red laser light as a guide. Well, it looks like he is on a GIANT conveyor belt at the supermarket and they have just UPC scanned him.

He still has the sticker on his cheek. They put it there to mark the right side of his body. He wants the doctor's to be amazed that he still has it there when he goes to have the stitches out.

Only four stitches for this ordeal. The really crappy part is that the ER doctor was NOT child friendly and she FREAKED J out when she draped his head to put the stitches in. She didn't explain anything to him, I had to. He was dripping and leaking soapy saline and he thought he was bleeding again. That was the worst part for me. She sucked. Other than that, it was a great four hour visit to the emergency room We got home and Jim was there to pick up the kids.

The official word on the "incident" is this...

Shawn, Drew, and James decided to go sledding. There is a perfectly good hill to sled down right next to the school. Nice hill, not too high, stairs next to it to climb back up...

That wasn't good enough for the "incident" as we are unofficially calling it.

Suicide Hill. I am not sure why they call it that. I really don't want to know...better to be able to deny any knowledge later. I think it might have something to do with the fact that it is steep, covered in ice, has one little hill in the middle of it, and at the end it has a "ramp" so that you "fly" off of it and you go one way and your sled goes the other. That would have been cool when I was nine. Now, I am just thinking...what the heck are they thinking! LOL

Apparently, that was not enough of a challenge for J. Just plain not good enough. James needs THE CHALLENGE. He needs to prove his nine year old manhood on "Suicide Hill".

He's going down BACKWARD with NO HANDS.

Halfway down the ice, where the little hill is, the sled flipped up and slapped him smack square in the nose and lips. When he hit the "ramp" at the end, he flew face first into the ice.

The best part of this whole story. Drew and James stayed at the hill and Shawn ran home. Drew told Shawn that if J walked his circulation would make him lose more blood--good thinking! Shawn was winded and crying. Drew packed J's RED glove in the snow and put that on his nose. That is one of the reasons that the bleeding had stopped so quickly. Drew was comforting J and telling him that he was NOT dying. Well, the reason that J was so sure that he was dying? The "three pounds of blood in the snow" Drew only thought it was a pound, but it was a lot.

Today when Mike got home from school, he told J that if he needed a "cover story" for his injury that he could say he got into a fight with Mike and Mike looks worse.

I am sitting here thinking...cover story? He went down SUICIDE HILL BACKWARD WITH NO HANDS and lost THREE POUNDS OF BLOOD, got a CAT SCAN, STITCHES and he needs a COVER STORY???

What the hell kind of bragging rights do kids need these days?

Man, all we had to do was go down the tall metal slide on the playground...in the middle of summer...in shorts...backward.

The good old days.

Love,
Kim

PS--Shawn and Drew got $5 hero bonus for taking such good care of their friend.

James got a $5 hero bonus for taking an absolutely still cat scan on his stomach with his chin flat on the bed...apparently with kids they usually have to run a scan three or four times to get it without movement...

I finally had a good OH-MY-BOB -he- is- really- okay- how -am -I -going -to -do -this- for-the-rest-of-my-life-cry at 2AM.

Oy.