Emma's first trip to the ER

notice monkey's bandage too

Friday, December 28th, 2007 will be a day we remember for a while-we spent most of our five year anniversary in the ER with Emma...

(don't read this if the thought of blood makes you weak)

We were in Indiana visiting my family for the week and were supposed to be leaving to come back home around 3 that day. We were going to drive half way and stay at a hotel that night so that we wouldn't be getting home exhausted. Michael was preaching both services on Sunday, teaching S.S. and leading choir practice, so being well rested and unpacked was our priority.

It was about 1:30pm and I was packing our things up in the family room. Michael was in the living room. Emma was kinda wandering around between us, my dad and my brother Jon. We all were still in our pj's-including Emma (we only have one bathroom at our house for 7+ people, so sometimes we wait a while to get a shower) and who cared what we looked or smelled like anyways? We were just going to be in the van for hours on end traveling home.
Everything happened so quickly. I heard glass shatter in the kitchen, Jon say something to Emma in a tone that gave me chills and Emma's ear piercing scream. I ran in the kitchen- as did Michael and my dad- to find Emma standing surrounded by shards of glass, blood all over the floor and dripping from her hands that were still holding pieces of the broken glass. Apparently she had picked up a Christmas drinking glass, tripped and the glass broke in her hands.
It took a little while to calm her down to see where the injuries were and how bad it was. I was shaking like a leaf. She had blood in her hair- I thought she had cut her head, but thankfully the only cut she got was on her right little pinky finger. After looking at it, we decided to take her to an Urgent Care up the road to see what they thought(we changed quickly out of our pj's but didn't take time for anything else. we looked horrible)...the doctor came right out and looked at her finger and sent us to the ER. The emergency room was extrememly busy and Emma wasn't seen until 6pm. The Lord was so gracious throughout the entire ordeal, but especially as we waited and waited- Emma wasn't allowed to eat/drink anything until she was seen. Once she calmed down, she didn't fuss at all. We took turns walking her in around the hospital in her stroller. When people would walk by, she'd hold out her bandaged, sock wrapped hand and wave.

She ended up with 2 stiches. Michael stayed with her while they strapped her down, cleaned her wound and stiched her up. I couldn't bear it. She did really well, considering. I went in after they cleaned her finger and before they stiched. Carmen- now I know how horrible it was for you- to see her strapped in that papoose and tears just streaming down her sweet cheeks... Michael and I started singing to her- the B-I-B-L-E and she stopped crying and even managed a feeble choked "Bi-ble!" at the end.

After it was all over with, she calmed down pretty quickly. She would almost forget about it and then see her bandaged finger and wimper "booboo". It was so pathetic.

It was a scary experience for us- mostly the arriving on the scene part- but we are soooo thankful to God for preventing what could have been a much worse senario had she tripped and landed on the glass.

We ended up leaving to come home early Saturday morning and had a good trip back. Emma slept most of the way- Friday really wore her out.

And yes, we've been a little overprotective since Friday, but we'll get over it.