Each day as new parents there are new challenges we have to master. One of those we have to do often is trimming finger and toenails. Apparently everything on babies grows like a weed! Sometimes I feel like that's all I get done is trimming nails. But, I digress. My latest misadventure begins with this very task.
On a normal weekend morning I got up with Tyler and got him changed and fed him his morning bottle. He was getting droopy-eyed so we finished the bottle and I let him relax there for a while. He was pretty much asleep so I decided that'd be the best time to cut his nails as I usually do. My first issue is that I couldn't find the nail clippers. I looked in the bathroom, the diaper bag, his bedroom, and finally, I find them in a random box in the kitchen. I remembered later why I'd tossed them in there, but at any rate it took me a while to find them. Luckily Tyler was still lightly dozing so I went ahead and started the nail clipping process. This went as normally as one could hope...at least for 9 fingers.
I finally got to the last finger, one of his thumbs. He's a little awake now, but still dozing so I figure I'll go ahead and finish quickly before he wakes up fully. I slide the clippers over the nail and just as I'm about to clamp down, he startles awake (most babies do this, and it's quite the event if you've ever seen it) and I've already clamped down. The tears and wails start. I've cut his thumb. So, he's all red-faced and screaming now and I'm already feeling bad because I've hurt him (the first time I've actually made him this upset from something I physically did). I finally get ahold of the flailing hand to survey the damage and I see it. I cut the side/top of the skin near the nail. Now blood's trickling everywhere! It's on the baby's pajamas, on me...I'm beginning to get uncomfortable, but not panicking.
My first instinct is to put his finger in my mouth, so I do in hopes of keeping the blood volume down. That's not helping so I grab the burp rag because it's the closest thing I have and wrap up his little hand and hold it. He's still screaming and the mommy guilt is setting in. I'm nearly in tears and his finger is gushing so I take him in the bedroom to my husband, who was sleeping and say, "I need help, I don't know what to do!" He shoots up out of bed and says, "What happened?" I unwrap Tyler's finger and it's still gushing blood. We all head out to the kitchen and run his hand under water. Nothing. Still gushing. We decide that we should elevate his hand and put pressure on it so I get him on the couch and hold his hand up. Luckily at this point, he stops crying. It was almost like magic. I sat there holding his hand up for a long time and I went to look to see how it was doing, and it's still bleeding. Now I'm debating going to the emergency room. But surely baby nail clippers can't do that much damage, right? So we sit a little longer. My husband gets a band-aid; still bleeding. My mind is racing.
How much blood can a baby lose before this gets bad? Do I need to tie it off or something like you see in those movies? Can you even stitch a baby's finger?
Finally, I get it together and still holding the baby's arm up, take another look. Yes! It stopped bleeding! After a few tears of my own, we manage to get some Neosporin on the finger and put one of those newborn cotton mits that you use to keep babies from scratching themselves on it to keep the medicine on. Not a half-hour afte rthe entire incident, Tyler is already laughing and playing and forgetting about what his mommy did to him. Boy, was that a day I'd like to soon forget!
The good news is, just three days later, you can barely tell it happened at all by looking at his finger. Thank goodness babies are so resillient...even when their mommies aren't.
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Showing posts with label health. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Thursday, October 6, 2011
The Mystery Misadventure
So, by now you're familiar with my son, Tyler. I talk about him, oh, just a little bit! This is another blog about him. The little guy has been doing so well lately. He's had a little congestion from the weather changing, but nothing we couldn't deal with. He finally started sleeping through the night too! Well, Sunday morning proved a whole new beast. It went something like this...
3:30 am Tyler wakes up screaming. Since we are attempting sleep training (not feeding until it's actually time to get up, simply putting the pacifier in), we assumed it must've just been a little wakeful period in his night. I get up and go in there to give him his pacifier. That works for a little while. Then the piercing screaming begins just shy of 5 am. Now the whole house is awake. We're trying everything. Diaper change, rocking, singing, walking the house, everything. Finally, I give in and decide to feed the little buger. That calms him down while he's eating, but as soon as he's done, the wailing starts again. The problem remains a complete mystery.
By this point I've sent my husband back to bed because there's no reason for all of us to be awake. After poking, touching and looking all over for something that could be wrong with this child I decide something must hurt and I give him some Tylenol. This appeases him and he takes a nap (and so do I) until about 7:30 am. As soon as he wakes up, it's on again. At this point I just feel so bad because I have no idea what's wrong and can't do anything for him. After taking his temperature and attempting another feeding (which he would have nothing of until an hour later), we determined that he's running a fever and maybe has some sort of bug. We know now that we have to keep him hydrated after our last ER visit (See the Misadventures in Health for more on that) so we're making sure he is eating and giving him water here and there. After his temp gets up to 101.3, I call the pediatrician (or page one, rather, since it was a Sunday). While waiting for the call back we decide maybe it's teeth. I mean, sure he's only 5 months old, but some babies teeth that early. I wasn't one of those. I didn't get my first tooth until almost 18 months and they had to do xrays to make sure I even had any (they had never seen this before at my dentist and ironically, a few years later his very own daughter had the same thing happen).
So Tony looks more closely in his mouth and there it is! A tiny little white speck poking through his top gum. Amazing that something that little can cause so much anguish! So out come the cold teething rings, vibrating teethers and everything else we've got in our arsenal. We kept up the Tylenol every 4 hours and he seemed to be getting much more congenial by the minute. The pediatrician called back and said that's what it sounded like to her as well and to make sure his temp stays below 102, otherwise we'll have to come in for an office visit. Luckily, so far, so good. The fever is holding below 100.
That's the latest misadventure in mommyhood. And boy it really was a mystery until we got it all figured out! I'm just glad we did!
3:30 am Tyler wakes up screaming. Since we are attempting sleep training (not feeding until it's actually time to get up, simply putting the pacifier in), we assumed it must've just been a little wakeful period in his night. I get up and go in there to give him his pacifier. That works for a little while. Then the piercing screaming begins just shy of 5 am. Now the whole house is awake. We're trying everything. Diaper change, rocking, singing, walking the house, everything. Finally, I give in and decide to feed the little buger. That calms him down while he's eating, but as soon as he's done, the wailing starts again. The problem remains a complete mystery.
By this point I've sent my husband back to bed because there's no reason for all of us to be awake. After poking, touching and looking all over for something that could be wrong with this child I decide something must hurt and I give him some Tylenol. This appeases him and he takes a nap (and so do I) until about 7:30 am. As soon as he wakes up, it's on again. At this point I just feel so bad because I have no idea what's wrong and can't do anything for him. After taking his temperature and attempting another feeding (which he would have nothing of until an hour later), we determined that he's running a fever and maybe has some sort of bug. We know now that we have to keep him hydrated after our last ER visit (See the Misadventures in Health for more on that) so we're making sure he is eating and giving him water here and there. After his temp gets up to 101.3, I call the pediatrician (or page one, rather, since it was a Sunday). While waiting for the call back we decide maybe it's teeth. I mean, sure he's only 5 months old, but some babies teeth that early. I wasn't one of those. I didn't get my first tooth until almost 18 months and they had to do xrays to make sure I even had any (they had never seen this before at my dentist and ironically, a few years later his very own daughter had the same thing happen).
So Tony looks more closely in his mouth and there it is! A tiny little white speck poking through his top gum. Amazing that something that little can cause so much anguish! So out come the cold teething rings, vibrating teethers and everything else we've got in our arsenal. We kept up the Tylenol every 4 hours and he seemed to be getting much more congenial by the minute. The pediatrician called back and said that's what it sounded like to her as well and to make sure his temp stays below 102, otherwise we'll have to come in for an office visit. Luckily, so far, so good. The fever is holding below 100.
That's the latest misadventure in mommyhood. And boy it really was a mystery until we got it all figured out! I'm just glad we did!
Friday, September 23, 2011
Misadventures in Health
The Pleasant Family is generally a healthy crew, well, at least they were until last week. I can honestly say last week may have been one for the stress record books. It really began on Monday, although we didn't know that then.
My husband, Tony, works in an office. Apparently he went to fix something on another computer in that office and misjudged a chair, we'll call it. You know, like when you go to step down off a step and it's further away than you thought? It was that, just with an office chair. This created a sharp pain in his abdomen he told me when he got home that day. Luckily, the pain went away that evening. So, he wakes up the next day and says he's a little sore, but nothing else.
Fast forward to noon the next day. After complaining of a few painful spasms, he calls me at noon and says he's headed straight to the emergency room. The conversation went something like this:
Me: "Hello?"
Tony: "Hi, I'm on my way to the emergency room."
Me: "Ok, are you okay? Can you wait for me to drive you?"
Tony: "No, I've already left home I'll just meet you there."
So, I jet off from work to the emergency room a little more than slightly worried, because for my husband to go to the ER, it must really hurt. He told me it felt like it might be his appendix. To make what could be an even longer story short, they do bloodwork, a CT scan and determine that it's not his appendix (whew!), but it could be kidney stones. So we wait a little while longer and they determine it's not that either. The diagnosis works out to be a severe muscle strain, from, yep the chair incident! It's not funny (okay, it's maybe a little funny), but they gave him pain killers and naproxen for the muscle spasms causing the pain.
Now, many days later, this leads to heartburn. The poor guy now has consistent heartburn and stomach pain so he quits taking the meds and goes to our regular family doctor (because 48 hours of persistent heartburn is not normal!) who informs him that the naproxen is causing that and it'll be another 7-10 days before that lets up. Needless to say, he will have to suffer some more, poor guy.
But, that can't be the end of this little misadventure! Two days after this little incident I'm sitting at work and my daycare calls me to inform me that my son has neither eaten or made a wet diaper since he's been there (he was dropped off at 8 am, it's now noon). So, I call his doctor and get no one. I leave work to go get him and the little guy can't even wake up or pick up his head. This has me scared to death, but luckily my husband shows up and we take the baby right to the doctor. No one is there (can they really send an entire office of pediatricians to lunch at the same time? Apparently they can!). We procede to the ER for the SECOND time this week. By this time Tyler is awake, but still groggy. They give him chest xrays, which he did not like, and an upper respiratory virus test, which he really didn't like.
All tests come back negative and it turns out he just has a chest virus. The grogginess was caused by dehydration from not wanting to eat. The worry is less, but the poor guy now undergoes saline nebulizer treatments and a whole lot of nose sucking to help relieve the congestion. He should return to normal in a few weeks. I also had nebulizer treatments when I was little and boy, have those machines come a long way! Ours looks like a little puppy now. When I was little, it was a big, scary box with a handle!
Anyway, that's the end of this misadventure, let's just hope we don't have to have anymore like it in the near (or far) future!
My husband, Tony, works in an office. Apparently he went to fix something on another computer in that office and misjudged a chair, we'll call it. You know, like when you go to step down off a step and it's further away than you thought? It was that, just with an office chair. This created a sharp pain in his abdomen he told me when he got home that day. Luckily, the pain went away that evening. So, he wakes up the next day and says he's a little sore, but nothing else.
Fast forward to noon the next day. After complaining of a few painful spasms, he calls me at noon and says he's headed straight to the emergency room. The conversation went something like this:
Me: "Hello?"
Tony: "Hi, I'm on my way to the emergency room."
Me: "Ok, are you okay? Can you wait for me to drive you?"
Tony: "No, I've already left home I'll just meet you there."
So, I jet off from work to the emergency room a little more than slightly worried, because for my husband to go to the ER, it must really hurt. He told me it felt like it might be his appendix. To make what could be an even longer story short, they do bloodwork, a CT scan and determine that it's not his appendix (whew!), but it could be kidney stones. So we wait a little while longer and they determine it's not that either. The diagnosis works out to be a severe muscle strain, from, yep the chair incident! It's not funny (okay, it's maybe a little funny), but they gave him pain killers and naproxen for the muscle spasms causing the pain.
Now, many days later, this leads to heartburn. The poor guy now has consistent heartburn and stomach pain so he quits taking the meds and goes to our regular family doctor (because 48 hours of persistent heartburn is not normal!) who informs him that the naproxen is causing that and it'll be another 7-10 days before that lets up. Needless to say, he will have to suffer some more, poor guy.
But, that can't be the end of this little misadventure! Two days after this little incident I'm sitting at work and my daycare calls me to inform me that my son has neither eaten or made a wet diaper since he's been there (he was dropped off at 8 am, it's now noon). So, I call his doctor and get no one. I leave work to go get him and the little guy can't even wake up or pick up his head. This has me scared to death, but luckily my husband shows up and we take the baby right to the doctor. No one is there (can they really send an entire office of pediatricians to lunch at the same time? Apparently they can!). We procede to the ER for the SECOND time this week. By this time Tyler is awake, but still groggy. They give him chest xrays, which he did not like, and an upper respiratory virus test, which he really didn't like.
All tests come back negative and it turns out he just has a chest virus. The grogginess was caused by dehydration from not wanting to eat. The worry is less, but the poor guy now undergoes saline nebulizer treatments and a whole lot of nose sucking to help relieve the congestion. He should return to normal in a few weeks. I also had nebulizer treatments when I was little and boy, have those machines come a long way! Ours looks like a little puppy now. When I was little, it was a big, scary box with a handle!
Anyway, that's the end of this misadventure, let's just hope we don't have to have anymore like it in the near (or far) future!
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