Gabe's trip to the ER

I finally have a second to sit down and write about Gabe's... and my HORRIBLE Day. Where to begin. I was starting to take down my Christmas decorations and Gabe was keeping busy playing. He loves to climb on the dining room chairs and stand on them. Well, he has found out that climbing on the barstools is way more fun. I put them on their side so I wouldn't have to worry about Gabe and his climbing. I was taking off the tree ornaments when I heard the barstool slam to the floor and Gabe screaming. I ran over to him and saw blood everywhere. I started looking him over to see where all the blood was coming from. I looked down at his right foot and saw that his big toe was covered in blood. My immediate thought was "Oh my gosh, he has severed his big toe..... it's going to fall off." The first thing i did was run him to the kitchen sink, blood dripping everywhere, and run water over it so I could see how bad it really was. That didn't help much because the bleeding was so bad. So I then took a bunch of paper towels and tried to hold them to his toe so that I could control the bleeding to a certain extent. I found that to be pretty much impossible when your 15 month old is screaming and wiggling because he is in so much pain. I ran into my bedroom with Gabe in my arms and found my phone. The first person I thought to call was my mom since I needed help and she lives the closest to me. While we waited for her to get to my house, we sat on the bed and rocked. I was trying to comfort him as much as I could but he was not having any of it. I was freaking out if you can imagine. When my mom showed up, we got in the car and went to the Riverton Hospital ER. Gabe was kind of in a zone while we were driving. I don't know if it was because of the car ride or if it was because he was just exhausted from the accident. I also called dall and filled him in on what was going on. He told me to keep him posted. They got us right in to see the Doctor on call and he was so good with Gabe. He was patient through all of Gabe's screaming and he was doing a great job calming him down. He wanted to soak his toe in antibacterial liquid for a little while to get all the infection out. Gabe did not like that one bit since it was cold on his toe and it probably stung a little bit. Then we took some x-rays on his little foot to see if there was any bone damage or fractures. Come to find out, the tip of his big toe is fractured because of the weight of the barstool hitting it. Also, when the barstool hit his toe, it cut it right below the nail bed and sliced it pretty deep. The good thing about this is that it didn't hit the nail bed so even though his toe nail will probably fall off, his toe nail will definitely grow back normally. I was very happy about this. Although the cut is pretty deep, the Dr. said that there really was no point to give him stitches because the skin below the nail is so thin, especially on a 15 month old. So, he decided to drill a hole through Gabe's nail to release the blood and pressure that was under it. The Dr. said that Gabe should feel a lot better after that. Then he wrapped his toe and foot with a LOT of tape and gauze for padding and protection. His toe will be in a lot of pain for quite a while since he has a deep cut and a bone fracture. We need to change his tape and gauze daily and the Dr. put him on an antibiotic that he needs to take 4 times a day. We will need to keep a close eye on it for the next day or so to make sure there are no signs of infection. Gabe was such a brave boy throughout all of this. Although he was in a lot of pain, he was still saying "Hi" to everyone he saw and showing off his adorable personality. He was a hit with all the nurses. We were there so long, he even got an hour nap in there. So, quite the scary and eventful day at the Lundquist home. I just hope he sleeps ok tonight.

Here are a couple of pictures I took from my phone at the ER.

This picture was taken after it was all cleaned up

Gabe fell asleep because he was so tired... he flinched through the whole nap

Can we say OUCH!!!!!!