In Stitches

Well, I had my first experience of taking one of my boys in to get stitched up, almost 2 weeks ago. All the boys that live around us were having a race on their bikes. Justin and another boy got too close to one another and their pegs got caught in each others wheels causing them both to crash. Justin came running in with blood dripping everywhere holding his chin. I made him go stand over the sink so I could come take a better look at it. He was pretty beat up looking, with scrapes and scratches all over. When I got him some what cleaned up around his chin, and saw his injury, I knew right away he would need stitches. My neighbor came down and suggested we try to bandage it up with closure strips first to see if we could avoid having to go in and get stitches. It was a good try but after an hour or so it was dripping through the strips, so I had to take him in. Of course this would have to happen just an hour before Austin's baseball game, so no one got dinner that night and I ended up missing the ball game.

Watching them prepare the injury for stitches and stitching it up wasn't so bad, but I was glad it wasn't me. Justin was pretty brave. Getting the shots was the worst part, and he didn't even cry through the whole process. I think he cried more while waiting for them to come in before he got stitched up, because the unknown is pretty scary! All in all, going 10 1/2 years with no stitches is pretty good in my book when you have two boys. I just hope we can go another 10 1/2 years before having to do it again.

The picture of his stitches were taken the day before he had them taken out, so he had 4 days to heal. I wanted to get a picture of him the day it happened, but he was so upset and scared of getting stitches that I didn't want to make him anymore upset than he already was. But I definitely wanted a picture of his stitches before they came out. He has healed up pretty good, and it looks like he may not even get a scar! Thank goodness all of that drama is over!