Clara's Bike Injury 3.15

On this brisk morning off, we set a playdate with some DCS friends to meet at Allen’s Lane playground.  The boys were playing capture the flag.  Geoff was chatting with another dad.  And Clara had just finished some biking laps around the tennis court. I was chatting with a friend, not too far from Clara. 
She was on her bike on the hill.  She had JUST mastered the turn-your-bars-toward-where-you-fall steering.  But on the grassy hill, the bike started to coast and it fell to the left. Falling with it, the right handle bar, scraped her lower right lip and inner gums.  

There was a lot of blood.  I ran over to her, her pink coat soaked with blood down the front.  She soaked her helmet strap.  I think this is what scared her most.  Geoff, thank God we were both there, ran for our first aid kit.  He grabbed gauze for her and then whisked her off to the bathroom to rinse it off.  

Fast forward a half hour and Calliope, Clara and I are at St. Chris.  We found our regular pediatrician (read saint), Dr. Taylor, who I was hoping would say, “Oh, let me butterfly-bandage that and you’ll be on your way.”  However, he took one look at her and stood up.  Then he said, you need to go straight over to the plastic surgeon.  Clara and I cried. 

We took the long walk over to the ER, where we were labeled as INBOUND, which made things go faster.  When we got our little room, I dimmed the lights and found Nick Jr. on TV.  This helped a lot. Except for the bloody gauze we kept having to change, and clara holding it up to her face, it was like being at Nanay and Big Dad’s. 

Our former pediatrician, Dr. Casher, who works in the ER now, found us and wanted to say hi.  This was very comforting.  She said that it wouldn’t be that different when Clara split her chin when she was 4, and needed stitches.  Dr. Taylor found us again too and said that he thought she’d need IV sedation this time because she’s so much older now and when you stitch the face, you need to be really still.  I really questioned him on giving her sedation.  He said that part of the sedation contained an amnesiac so she wouldn’t have horrible associations with the hospital and what took place.   And he said that we’d be there for about 3 hours.  He brought each girl a book, which was so sweet.

The resident was a petite Ghanan woman with a neon yellow G-shock watch.  She was the first one to really shine the light onto the wound and probe the injury.  Then the Attending looked to be in his 50’s, a bearded marathoner-type.  The memorable thing that he did was to look right at Clara and ask, “Were you wearing a helmet?”  Thank the Lord, she was.  He didn’t ask me, he asked her point blank.  I thought that was interesting.

Fast forward another hour: The Kafers came to get Calliope, which was great.  Ellie and Ryan emerged bearing a grape lollipop, which is pretty much the best way she’d want to be greeted.  

Pretty much right then, the plastic surgeon enters.  He is from Serbia and he wears glasses by Dolce and Gabbana.  He has handsome disco-tech hair.  And he works to make Clara smile, not easy.   

He is incredibly calm and when I broach the sedation thing, he just looks at her and frowns his mouth down like, “Not necessary.”  He shows Clara everything, the thread, the Novacaine, the sterile field.  He asks me to help him by squirting the iodine on his gauze.  We stood over her and he asked if her lip was numb yet, and she would say, “No.” He’d ask again a few times more until it was clear it was numb.  Then he put a big kleenex over her face and she freaked out because she could no longer see.  I lay my head next to hers, both of us sort of under this big tissue.  

He did 10 stitches in all.  No sedation, only localized Novocaine.  Wanted pizza for dinner.  And is intent on going to ballet tomorrow.  

Let this day mark another time this girl faced adversity and came through.