Our visit to the ER (AKA WeeC prefers iced coffee)

Today will reach a heat index of 110.

First the power went out. Large healthy looking tree shed two huge branches, right at sunrise.

BigE dumped water no less than 4 times in the hour that we were home, before we left for a cafe for air-conditioned breakfast. Costume changes, mopping, mumbling annoyed at messy kids....

WeeC woke and we embarked to a cafe in Alexandria. At the cafe, we met a neat family, talked schools and DC and all the things we talk about. Food arrived, coffee refilled....

Coffee spilled. On WeeC.

The next bit is a blur, but the docs have told me we did the right things and we did them well. We stripped her in seconds, diaper too, got outside, and kept dousing the burn with cold water. I called 911 to find out where the closest emergency room was and the operator convinced me to wait for an ambulance. We kept with the dousing her while I held her and some hysterical part of my mind laughed at how much of the day involved dumping water on my kids. She and I were soaked through but still it burned. The ambulance arrived and they decided we should go to the burn center at Children's.

That sounds calm and rational, but in reality there was screaming (WeeC's) and freaking out (mine) and calm bravery (BigE's) and gentle competence (Bill's). Bill took BigE and I went in the ambulance.

In the ambulance, listening to the EMT call our arrival into the hospital, I learned that they thought we had 2nd degree burns to 20% of her body, mostly to torso and leg. 20%. So much! I cried and sang to her... and cried.

Because everything involves some farce, the ambulance driver used GPS to get to Children's but then could not sort out the complex and wayfinding signs to get to the ER. I live very close, so I hollered out directions from the gurney in the back. Laugh if you will, but they appreciated the help and, with some spiraling around, we finally found the right emergency room, but the wrong entrance...so they wheeled us through the main lobby instead of into the ambulance entrance.

In a flurry, WeeC was assessed, a line put in, and shortly, she had a baby dose of morphine. Knowing she was on the monitors and relieved of pain, my panic-brain relaxed a little so the rational part could step up.

As these things go, it's not very bad. No apparent 3rd degree burns. Nothing in sensitive areas. Nothing in the hip crevice where the diaper fits. The last realization was such a relief that it struck me as funny.

They debrided the burn and dressed it. The dressing looks like a mousepad - gray foam with a sticky side. It has silver embedded in it as an anti-bacterial. Then we wrapped it on her so she would not peel it off.

She looks like a lil Michelin Tire baby. With a cookie. Her sister and grandma got her a cookie and some fruit salad, which made her much happier. Before the hospital got us the discharge papers (so slow!) she was toodling around the room trying to climb on the hospital bed and provoking her sister.

That's my bruiser.

She's home. We will go back to the hospital's burn clinic to get the dressing changed on Monday.

It looks like the biggest impact on our life will be that she won't be able to get in the pool for the rest of the season. Damn, we are lucky.

Comments

[Karen]

Oh God, this made me cry. So glad it wasn't more serious. What a trooper.

[Danie]

I swear I will never be able to drink coffee again after reading this. What a wonderful writer you are! I am definitely in tears, both imagining the terror you were feeling, and the ironic relief you're left with now. Will keep her in my thoughts!

[Carla]

Jess & Bill - Bob and I really feel for you and we're so impressed how you handled it all. Big mommy & daddy medals to you both.

Not that it compares in severity, but Nora just had her first stitches - ran into her door frame and split her eyebrow open. Stitches came out this past weekend and it's not too bad. Scars make you cool, friends say. Like you, Bob was amazing in the moment - head wounds are very profuse.

Somehow parents do this stuff. Yeah us!

:)

[ush]

Just like my niece to be accident prone like her auntie (and her cousin, too) lots of hugs and love to two amazing parents and a truly wonderful big sister and her tough little cookie of a little sister.