Thursday, March 17, 2011

03-17-2010 A Nail. Where? IN HIS HEAD!

A look back to last year on this day with a post I made to some friends at the time.

To begin, Bar is fine.  Completely fine.  He is, as I type, sitting next to me in his high chair nibbling on cheese and crooning sweet love songs to the cat.
To backtrack, Bar was playing happily this afternoon on the carpet with his books.  All was right with the world as he sat and read.  Having heard the soft (and familiar) thud of infant head striking carpet, I glance up to find my son face planted into the carpet, a not altogether unusual sight given that he is 11 months old and the niceties of forward momentum still elude him at times.  More unusual though, was the cry that followed shortly thereafter, less a "boo hoo I did not achieve my objective so now I am cross" cry and more of a "moooooooooomy something is gravely wrong, I'm not ok and you must come quickly to determine why" cry.  So, I scoop him into my arms offering all of the typical "There, there's" and "Shhhh, shhhhhs."  I stroke his head.  And my hand strikes something hard.  Thinking it a piece of straw or a stray bit of shredded wheat from breakfast, I swipe at it again.  It is then that I see metal.  Immediately after that I see blood.  Fortunately, time stopped at that moment, so I don't feel guilty for sitting there waiting for my brain to assemble all of the information of the last few moments and come to the conclusion that my son has a nail sticking out of the side of his head.
Time restarts.  I run next door to Randall's and ask him to hold the baby, informing him matter of factly that there is something sticking out of his head.  Somewhat perplexed, he replies, "What?"  but does it anyway.  I grab a wad of tissues from the bathroom, intent on being proactive and removing the offending nail.  I grab the end, meet with some resistance, and contemplate vomiting.  Instead, I announce that we need to go to the ER immediately.  I race back to my apartment for the car seat.  Ever try to put an infant in a bucket seat with a nail protruding from the side of his head?  They're not really made to accommodate such things.  Bar rode in my lap.  Babykiller, I know.
It gets fairly boring from here.  Bar had long since stopped crying and seemed most annoyed that I kept trying to move his hand from the side of his head.  They fast tracked us at the ER and, in no time at all, he's having an x-ray.  They determine that the nail didn't puncture the skull and the doc comes in and just plucks it out.  Bar only whimpered.  He didn't really cry until she started to wash it and even then, the hurt was instantly repaired by a few hippie O's and a quick nursing.
This brings us back to the beginning of the post.  Bar is fine.  I, however, expect not to be fully recovered for some time.

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