Thursday, April 30, 2009

Medical Mishaps

Dean's first visit to the ER
As I was trying to get dinner together last night, Dean was climbing up on our kitchen stool, slipped and hit his chin on the corner of the stool. We first noticed the cut on his tongue since it was bleeding pretty badly. We let it bleed a little while and then had him drink a glass of water so we could see how bad the cut was. That actually made the bleeding stop and we figured that the cut wasn't bad enough to go to the hospital. As we were going to give him tylenol, Matt noticed Dean had a decent cut under his chin.

So, off we went to the ER. Our visit was as good as you could possibly get at the ER. We got right in and within a half hour we'd seen the physician's assistant. He decided the cut was about as clean as you could get and that glue would be better than stitches. That took about 5 min. while I held his hands and legs and a little fan. Matt held his head and the doctor held the cut closed. We were out within an hour or so. He really did quite well (only cried when the doctors were doing stuff to him and stopped when they had left) and seems to be fine. It's not visible straight on right now, but hopefully it doesn't scar too badly. We took these pictures after we got home from the hospital.

Attack of the killer fire ants
I have mentioned before that fire ants are my number 1 hated thing about TX. I seem to get bit more often than Matt, but I don't think I'll complain nearly as loudly the next time it happens after what happened to him two days ago! He got bit by 2 fire ants. At first it just looked a little more swollen than normal. When he got home from work yesterday the whole top half of his foot was swollen and he was limping. When we were at the hospital for Dean, we slipped a question about Matt's foot. He said it looked like an allergic reaction and to take benadryl and zantac. So, he did.

This morning his foot looked even worse. The swelling had spread further up his foot. So he went to our family practice doctor this afternoon. She thought it looked infected and prescribed him some antibiotics. She traced the swelling with a sharpie and told him to come back tomorrow if it was worse or back on Monday if it hadn't gone down. Hopefully the meds help. It's all discolored now and he has a blister where the ants bit him.

10 comments:

Maren said...

oh, so sorry! No fun for your men. I can't believe how different Dean looks with his new haircut. He is such a little man. Love it!

FoxyJ said...

Yuck--so not fun at all! S-Boogie did the same thing with her chin about a year ago and it's hardly noticeable now. She also has a similar swelling reaction to mosquito bites--the first time it happened they thought it was an infection but it's happened a few times since (not so badly--the first time she had 4 on one hand). For her, Benadryl usually clears it up pretty well, but not the cream, only the actual medicine. Anyways, hope they both start feeling better!

Kristi said...

I'm sorry! That definitely doesn't sound like fun for any of you. Hopefully this is the only split chin you have to deal with - my mom threatened to put a zipper in my older brother's chin from all the pop-wheelie and king-of-the-hill accidents he had as a kid. He doesn't have any scars, though. And OW about the fire ants! Hopefully the swelling and pain go down soon.

mad white woman said...

Poor little chin.

I love your posts Celia, you are always upbeat and rarely let things get you down.

Jodi Reeve said...

in and out of the ER in an hour,that is impressive!

Lindsay said...

Ouch -- for both of your boys! I hope they recover quickly! I haven't had to take Garrett to the ER...yet. I'm sure the day will come sooner or later. He's always falling or bumping into things and cutting his mouth with his teeth, which freaks me out because holy cow, mouth wounds bleed like crazy!

Brian & Veronica said...

wow, and you're sure it was red ants? not a spider huh? i've never seen a couple ants do so much damage!

Brian & Veronica said...

I'm sure you saw the ants, in which case you deduced it was indeed red ants. i didn't mean to doubt you! hahahaha. :) I guess I just meant, "sheesh, that's a lot of damage from an ant!"

Celia Marie (W.) B. said...

not red ants. fire ants. big difference. Here's a little excerpt from wikipedia:

Fire ants often attack small animals and can kill them. Unlike many other ants, which bite and then spray acid on the wound, fire ants only bite to get a grip and then sting (from the abdomen) and inject a toxic alkaloid venom called Solenopsin, a compound from the class of piperidines. For humans, this is a painful sting, it hurts, a sensation similar to what one feels when burned by fire—hence the name fire ant—and the aftereffects of the sting can be deadly to sensitive individuals.

Brian & Veronica said...

wow, I didn't realize that! thanks for teaching me Celia. glad to know. now i never want to live in TX. but everywhere you go, there's always something poisenous. ". . . for the pest of man. . . " is ringing in MY ears!