Drugs! We Need Drugs!

<------- This is a before photo of his booboos

So stitch removal part two. . . it was a flop. One big old semi-sedated flop. We got to the doctor's office this morning at 9, armed with the chloral hydrate prescription and a cup of "red juice" (sugar-free Hawaiian Punch - Henry's favorite, which I almost never let him drink). I checked him in, mixed the juice and nasty smelling chloral hydrate, and proceeded to fight with him for 30 minutes to drink it. He took one sip and said, "It taste YUCKY!" No fooling him. I got a straw and we blew bubbles in it, drank some, blew bubbles, etc. There was about an ounce of juice/med mix left, and the nurse told me to use the syringe to put it in his mouth. RIGHT! He spit it back out at me. Ever seen Hawaiian Punch? Good luck getting that out of our clothes. We went back to an exam room at about 9:30 and waited for him to get drowsy or fall asleep. And waited. And waited. And waited. At TEN THIRTY he was starting to get slightly drowsy. I think now perhaps he was just bored. We tried to take the stitches out, but it wasn't happening. I don't think the doctor felt confident enough to do it, which made me not want her to do it. Chris asked if we could do it at home. I, at that point, thought WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?! I didn't voice that though. The doctor was all for that. Big frigging surprise. Nobody there wanted to do it. She gave us the suture removal kit, told Chris how to do it, and sent us on our way. She did tell us that the stitches needed to come out today, and that if we weren't able to do it we should take him to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital to have them do it. We went home, and on the way I thought about us removing them ourselves. And I thought NO! I didn't want him to end up having a big bloody mess, and I really just didn't want to deal with it. It's extremely stressful to be there while he's being held down and someone is going at his face with scissors as he screams "Help me Mama! NO SCISSORS!"

We ended up taking him to Vanderbilt after lunch. If any of our children have stitches again, we'll just skip the steps in the middle and head directly there. I instantly felt better about the whole situation when we got there. They were totally confident that they could remove them without a problem. I told them how challenging it was because he was so upset, and I said I wanted him knocked out. The ER nurse explained to me that they could knock him out, but that it was and IV and that coming out of the anesthesia would not be fun. All of this for a 3 minute procedure. He recommended we use Versed, which is basically Valium. He was consciously sedated, pretty much acting very drunk and relaxed. I left the room while they did the stitches, and Chris stayed in with him. I got to the waiting room, sat down and opened a magazine and the nurse was telling me they were done. THANK GOD!!! His lip looks great, and I don't think he'll even have a scar in a few months.

I scarred something else today. . . my new car! We went to Chili's tonight and got take-out. I was backing out of the spot and Henry was crying. I was clearly distracted and not paying enough attention. I turned the wheel too soon and turned the front corner of the car into the cement speaker stand thingy. We checked it out when we got home and there's a large speaker stand shaped dent and lots of yellow paint on the bumper. Fantastic. I'm very irritated with myself. I know it's just a car, but I really don't want to spend $500 (our deductible) to fix it!!! Obviously we will be, and I guess we'll just chalk it up to some stupid tax!