Owen the OUCHster!

The "Big Big Boo Boo"

(note the color of the tip of his finger, this is ON antibiotics!)

Owen, defeated at the great battle of "Fan" on June 31, 2007.

He looks really hurt, right?

Boy, what a weekend we have had.... we attempted to go see Ryan's grandmother in Bath for the weekend. However our visit consisted of about 18 hours, 10 of which we were all sleeping. All because one of our curious children decided to try to chop his finger off, and the saga begins...

On Saturday Owen decided it would be a good idea to stick his finger in an old metal oscilating fan, even though Grandma, Mommy & Daddy told him repeatedly not to touch the fan. I heard a loud thud, followed by lots of crying and he came running over to me. I THOUGHT he had just bumped into the fan because it was such a loud thud but when Ryan asked me what happened & we looked down, his finger was covered in blood and dripping everywhere. That mean old fan bit the crap out of him, tore a big chunk of skin off and sliced REALLY deep almost to the bone on his finger. Right behind the first joint! So of course every time he bent his finger it would gush more.



After rinsing it, applying pressure and giving it a couple minutes we decided it wasn't going to stop bleeding on it's own, so we packed up the jeep as fast as we could and headed back home in hopes of making to the pediatrician's urgent care hours so we wouldn't have to wait for 6 hours or pay the ER copay just for stitches. Well, we got there at 2:15 and they closed at 2:00!!!!! OF COURSE! We ended up at another urgent care office and they decided it wasn't wide enough of a cut to able to stitch it, plus they didn't have anything to strap Owen down because they didn't usually see kids under 5, so they just put a sterile gauze and wrapped it so they could do an x-ray to make sure his finger wasn't broken. LUCKILY, it wasn't. Unluckily... they still wanted to splint his finger so he wouldn't be able to bend it and cause the cut to reopen over and over. He hated the splint, and the bandage over it was wolfpack red so Elijah felt the need to constantly try to pull it off his finger because after all, is bright RED! They sent us home and told us to change the dressing twice a day.... oooooh but the story doesn't end here.



Yesterday, the boys woke up from nap and we're chatting away in their big boy beds so I went to get them. As soon as I stepped in the door Owen held his finger up and said "Owww Mama, Boo Boo" and the whole bandage is GONE. Not only that but his finger is almost a burgandy red color and swollen 3 times the size it usually is. I called the pediatrician and they wanted to see him right away. Sure enough, it's infected and started spreading down his finger towards his hand. Thank God we caught it when we did since it was spreading so fast. He's on an antibiotic now and we have to go back on Friday so they can look at it again and make sure the infection is gone.



Long story short, we're very lucky the fan was on the lowest of 4 settings (yeah all that from LOW), it probably would have cut his finger off if it was on high. Even luckier, that he pulled bandage off and I saw his finger before when we would have normally gone to change the dressing (about 5 hours later). We'll be buying new tower fans for Grandma's house and hoping that Owen learned his lesson.



Urgent Care Bill $60

2 trips to the Pediatrician $40

Prescription $10

Your child still having his finger intact.... PRICELESS!