Wounded Warrior

On Friday, July 23rd I had my first ruthlessly true test of how I would react, as a mommy, in the case of a major emergency.  My middle child, or "Monkey Marin", as I lovingly called her because she climbs so much, fell out of a tree at a park while we were playing with friends. She landed with full brunt force on her forehead, which split wide open all the way down to her skull. It was a gruesome laceration and she needed emergency attention right away.

They say you either go into shock/panic mode or shoot straight into supermom mode when something like this happens to one of your babies, and I can assure you, there was no supermom here. It was nothing but

100%. Pure. Panic.

We made it to the ER by the grace of God and the shockingly good-samaritanism (forgive the made up term) of an innocent bystander who graciously carried Marin to the car and drove us to the hospital. Cory met us there just as they took us back to triage. There we waited for the plastic surgeon for what seemed like days, but was more like 6 hours. Luckily we had an amazing doctor, "Doctor Katie", who took care of us from start to finish in the ER.  She was brilliant, and knew exactly how to handle Marin, speak to her, wait for her to get comfortable with an idea before pushing it on her, and helped mommy stay calm too.  It was such a God-send to have this woman be our caretaker at such a scary time.  Very reassuring.

Here we are shortly after our first bandage was applied, and only one dose of pain meds administered. Can you believe we even got a smile out of her here? She was so brave.  Such a trooper.

When the surgeon finally rolled in, he assured us that it was not wise to try to put such a laceration back together on a toddler (much less the face of a girl) under "twilight" anesthesia, and that we would need to wait until the following day for full anesthesia surgery.  So they got her as cleaned up as possible and sent us home for the night. 

Here she is with an ice block, her third (or maybe fourth) bandage, and three doses of pain meds administered.  Sweet thing, she really did seem perfectly normal by this point...it was mommy and daddy that were still completely shaken to our core.

We had to pick Caden and Hallie up from The Purnell's house.  My friend Clare, who had been at the park with us and her three kids, took Caden and Hallie home with her, fed them, put them in PJ's and cared for them until almost midnight.  She even sent dinner home with us.  What an incredible angel she was! 

The following day we had to come back in the morning to check in for a mid-day surgery.  Sidenote, they call it "theatre" here. She was in good spirits and enjoyed playing with the toys at the children's' hospital while she was waiting for theatre. 

Playing away.

Once again we were assigned a fantastic nurse, nurse Libby, who seemed to take special interest in us and actually became an amazing advocate for me, arguing with the theatre staff in order for me to escort Marin all the way into the operating room and hold her hand as they put her under.  AMAZING!  This would never happen in The States!

Mom getting ready for surgery entry.

She came through the quick 35-minute surgery with flying colors, and awoke cranky, but fell back asleep for three hours and then awoke again cheerful and seemingly fine. The anesthesiologist had been given her history of rough transition from anesthesia after her ear tubes surgery and gave her something additional as he administered the anesthesia, which he said helped "ease her out of it."

Her first food of choice? Chocolate chip cookies and chocolate milk.  Atta girl!

With daddy (and her chocolate milk).

Twenty-five outer layer stitches, and 5 inner layer stitches, and we had our little girl all put back together again.  Praise the Lord!

Just this past week, we went back to see our plastic surgeon to get a check up and make sure everything was healing well.  She got two thumbs up!  

Here she is with Dr. Broadhurst, who Cory and I joked looks more like Vin Diesel than the surgeon we were expecting :)  He did a great job, and I couldn't have been more comfortable with my daughter being in his care.  Sidenote - we also joked that only in Oz would you have a surgeon who looks like Vin Diesel, and leaves directly after surgery to go surfing in Indonesia! (seriously)