Another stitch for Adam

We had some more medical excitement around the house last week. As the kids get older (and as we get more kids) events like these are becoming less exciting and more commonplace, but it's still out of the ordinary!

Adam was invited to a friend's house to go bike riding. He was especially excited because this friend lives in a more rural area and has some woods with dirt bike trails near their house.

Unfortunately, on the way to the dirt bike path, they were riding along a gravel road and the gravel got the best of him. I guess, being a city kid, he's not yet learned to ride on gravel. He fell and split his knee open pretty badly. The mom at the house patched him up, but he never made it back out on bikes that day.

Later that evening, we took the bandage off his knee and found quite an ugly sight. We decided we had better get him patched up so we took him to the urgent care place. Good thing we did - there was a good sized hole in his leg full of little rocks and grass and stuff.

Adam seems to never get nervous about anything, but I think I've figured him out finally. I think when he is nervous, he just covers it up very well. He becomes very poised, almost grown-up. He sits with his legs crossed comfortably and has a very serious look on his face - not a look of fear, but a very calm and peaceful, but still alert look. Every time I've seen him sitting like that, it's been before some performance or some other big thing that he should be nervous about. I think he's got an unusual ability to calm himself when faced with a difficult situation so he either doesn't feel the nerves or at least he doesn't show it.

He had the exact same look at the doctor's office waiting for the wound to be cleaned, and I realized he was probably pretty worried about it.

So, we go into the procedure room at the doctor's and Adam was still being VERY serious - answering the questions from the nurse in a very poised and mature manner. Finally the doctor came in and started cleaning and picking at the wound. I could tell Adam was in some serious pain - it was starting to show through and at one point he even gasped and said, "Oh, that hurt!". But he never cried and was just so controlled through the whole thing - I was very impressed.

After the doctor put in the numbing medicine and the pain went away, Adam was very interested in what was happening. He sat up and watched carefully. I could see the look in his eye, "Oh cool, look at all that blood gushing from my leg ... Neat - I can see down inside my skin when he pulls my skin out like that! Oh wow - did you see that rock that was in my knee!" And so on. I was grossed out, but Adam was totally entertained. Like I said, the doc had to pick around quite a bit to get the rocks and grass and stuff out.

Lizzy also went with Adam and I. She was soooo funny. The whole time, she was super talkative. She is our most un-shy child and was talking the whole time, asking the doctor every step of the way what he was doing. She would walk right over to him and stand there right next to him watching him work. The doctor was great - he answered all of her questions very well and wasn't annoyed at all. Lizzy was asking some great questions though so it was hard to be annoyed (such as, "How do x-rays see inside you?" and "Is this the stitches part? Is that a real needle and thread you're using?"

It was a good experience. I don't get to go to the doctor with the kids much - usually that's Tammy's department, but I enjoyed going and was pretty proud of both of my kids for how they behaved and how they are both maturing.

Following are some pictures taken the last couple of days. One with Adam's stitches (3 stitches) and then some of the kids at quiet time yesterday.