Stitches...again...

Well, true to hansen fashion this year, we just added yet another trip to the emergency room for Stitches. That making this years tally:
Cory=1
Ethan=1
and now Briggs=1

within the past 3 months.

With the exception of Cory's trip Thanksgiving morning after a rough game of church football, where he got three stitches in his lip, I can account to the other four times the boys have each had stitches (2 times each) or had to go to the emergency and 3 times have happened within the hour proceeding bed time and are usually a product of rough housing or being silly.

So, last night went down like this...

It was 6 o'clock and Cory was throwing the football to Briggs and then Ethan would tackle him (Ethan wearing his football helmet and gear) and on one unfortunate tackle Briggs "SMACKED" the corner of the base molding SOOO hard! I knew before I looked at it that there was going to be damage. His head immediately had a huge goose-egg on it (it looks better in the picture) and of course a gash. As Ethan was watching everything going down he said so innocently, "I guess you should have worn your helmet." What can you say to that....

Once Briggs realized there was blood the "pain" level went up at an increasing speed and then doubled when he realized he had to go to the emergency room. He was "NOT going to go!!!" and ran around the house to elude us so we couldn't take him away. Cory had to cancel his church meeting to stay home with the kids and I had to carry a screaming and kicking Briggs to the car and wrestle him into his seat (Cory having sprained his ankle playing basketball the night before). By the time I came around to my seat he had stopped crying and had his arms crossed and his face set and he told me,

"I am NOT going into the hospital!"

On the way there he told me several times that he "did not like doctors because their mean and they give you stitches and shots" and once again that he was "not going to go in."

When we pulled up to Children's he reminded me of his promise to "NOT go in" and unbuckled and ran to the back of the van. I told him this was not going to be pretty. He got away from me once as I tried to wrangle him from the back while trying to dodge the huge car seats. Finally I caught hold of him and carried him in.

When we walked in he refused to stand by me and stood by the door defiant as could be; arms crossed and a scowl on his face. Finally the cartoons playing caught his attention and within a few minutes he was calmed down.

After he got the cold numbing pad on his head, that he DID NOT like, we cuddled and read books for a half hour.

He did really good with the "string bandage" as they called it and got 4 stitches. They talked to him about sports and that kept him pretty occupied as he squeezed his eyes shut for the entire process. He liked the bed that moved up and down and thought that was pretty cool. He even got some cool spiderman and pokeman stickers (which he so kindly shared with Ethan, who wore them proudly today) and a blue popsicle.

On the way home he said to me, "I did AWESOME!" and "That wasn't soo bad." He was so proud of himself. He even came home and proudly showed daddy and Ethan his stitches.

Unfortunately as I looked at his stitches I realized that his previous scar, that happened when he was 10 months is going horizontal, and this one going vertical, will make a cross. Hopefully it will heal well and you won't be able to notice. The other scar is really hard to see and it's been over 4 years.

Hopefully this year will bring us less emergency room visits.