As I said, there we were, enjoying the peace and quiet when I heard screaming. Uh huh, the cat finally taught the little booger a lesson. I knew what had happened as soon as I heard the crying, I just wasn't ready for what she had done to The Youngest. He's forever picking at the animals (out of love, not meanness) and was all in her face and she scratched him. On the eye.
Was there blood? Oh there was blood all right, gushing and squirting from the eye in massive amounts. You couldn't even see his eye. Oh My God! was all I could think, he's lost his eye! The Eldest was running around screaming for me (even though his Dad was sitting right there) and screaming "She got his eye, His eye is bleeding!" His Dad was screaming and then I started crying while running for a towel to try and staunch the bleeding. Total pandemonium and freak out.
Now I'm normally the very calm one in situations like this. When the Eldest went to the ER for a broken elbow and then again for 10 stitches for a cut over his eye, I was the picture of calm. I couldn't be shaken. My usual philosophy of life when major crap hits the fan is, Okay, it's happened, now let's just fix it. But that is not how I reacted last night. I don't know if it was from all the health issues and problems that I've been having lately or the fact that my baby was all covered in godawful amounts of blood, but I lost it. I was crying as I called 911. By the time we got the paramedics and fire department there, the bleeding had slowed down drastically and we could see the actual eyeball. Thank God, he still had one was all I could think.
We've had a lot of excitement on our street this week. First, there was one firetruck and one ambulance to help me. Then on Tuesday night, our neighbors one the big prize. There were fifteen firetrucks on our street called to help put out a chimney fire. Then, last night, Thursday night, we again had one firetruck and one ambulance. Our house has become quite the talk of the neighborhood. There's no telling what rumors are being passed around.
As a matter of fact, I became quite embarrassed when one of the firemen said, "Weren't we called here last week?" Um, yeah.
The EMTs checked the Youngest out and put on a great big eye-patch and determined that his eye looked okay, but we needed to get him to an ER to make sure. At this point the little guy had gone into shock and was shivering uncontrollably in the living room chair. He was a bit ticked off that we didn't let him ride in the ambulance to the ER and instead chose to drive him ourselves.
This is what he looked like at the ER a few hours later:
So then before we could leave to go to the hospital, one more straw was added to the camel's back. Do you smell something burning? We smelled something burning, something that smelled like burning plastic. The Elf was burning! He had appeared that morning in a very little used chandelier, the one that had been turned on in all the excitement and had been leaning up against a bulb.
I asked the paramedics if they dealt with Elf injuries, but they politely said no. Poor Elfie. We need an Elf burn center STAT.
Meanwhile, back at the
Hope you guys have a great weekend and I hope that we have a calm quiet one!
