Filet-O-Leg

Since we are moving, our house has been in chaos. There are boxes, and totes, and objects strewn ALL over!

Last week, Hubs and I were reclining in the family room, after a long day of work/school/packing, when all of the sudden we heard the oldest call out:

"Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Come quick! Come quick!"

I really didn't think much of it when I heard this. I knew that she had been playing with Henry, the hamster, and was putting him back in his cage. He tends to get all freaked out and crazy when you are trying to put him away, and he has been known to practically jump to his death on occasion. He has NO fear!

Here he is, the dare-devil himself. Isn't he cute?! He is holding on to the bars, peeking out, oh so innocently. If he could talk, I'm sure he would be saying, "Let me out!"

I heard my middle daughter run in there, since it is her hamster, and figured  she would be able to take care of it.

Then, I heard her say:

"The oldest (replace this with her actual name) sliced her leg open!"

I told Hubs that something was going on, and he'd better go in and see what was wrong. I still didn't think it was going to be anything real serious.

We live in a house with three girls, and they tend to be....well....a little dramatic at times. I was sure that it was probably just a little cut, and we could just put a band-aid on it, and call it good.

I heard Hubs call my name, and I ran in there. He told me that we were going to have to go to the hospital......NOW. The oldest had sliced her leg open, and it was deep. It was so bad, that he needed me to go and grab some towels, and he was going to tie a tourniquet on her leg.

She looked at me, crying, and said, "Mom....I saw it! It's deep, it's SO deep!"

Hubs told me to hold her leg together with the towel, and apply pressure. I told him that I needed to go and sit down while I did it, or I was possibly going to faint. I don't do so well with blood! I hadn't even seen it, but I knew that if my usual laid-back-it-will-all-be-okay husband sounded a little panicky, then it had to be BAD!

We called our doctor, who is also a dear friend, and he told us to meet him at his office. Hubs carried her out, with me holding her leg the entire time.

I kept praying over her, telling her that it will all be okay. Her teeth were starting to chatter, and she kept saying how deep it was. She told me that I hadn't seen it, but SHE had.

This is my daughter who can't even stand to talk about blood! I told her not to think about it, that she was going to need stitches, but it would be fine.

When we got in there, I really thought that when we untied the towels that blood would start spurting out like a fountain. We had no idea if she had hit an artery. We had prepared for the worst, and tied her leg up nice and tight.

When they undid the towels, that was the first time I had allowed myself to look at her leg. It had bled, but not as bad as we thought. When I looked at the cut though, it made me go weak in the knees. I had NO idea that it looked like this.....

*WARNING! IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH, LOOK AWAY! VERY GRAPHIC PICTURES ARE POSTED HERE!*

All right....if you are still looking.....consider yourselves warned.

Here is a far away shot, that shows where on her leg it is located.

Here is a close up

Now that I have posted these pictures, I am starting to feel sick, remembering that awful night all over again. I did not realize that skin would "split" open like this when it is cut. It's a good thing I'm sitting down!

During this time, I was up at her head, and she had her hands over her eyes, refusing to look. Hubs was the one taking the pictures. I told him that he had to be the one to take them, because I couldn't!

She had to have stitches on the inside first, because it was so deep.

After this picture was taken, Hubs' phone decided to die. I didn't have time to grab my purse, where my phone was, so I didn't have mine.  I barely even had time to put on my shoes!

While she was getting all stitched up, I was trying to distract her from what was going on. I am so proud of how brave she was! She didn't even cry. She was able to talk and even joke around. She said that the worst part of it all was the numbing shots she had to have before the stitching began. 

When the inside stitches were done, it looked very neat and tidy, and it was completely closed up. The doctor said that he could just leave it like that, because it was very solidly stitched up, but he was going to put stitches on the top also, so it would leave a smaller scar.

Altogether, she had about 25 stitches put in her leg. OUCH!

Here it is, after she was all stitched up.

She thought that it would really hurt the next day, but said that it just ached a little. Nothing that some extra strength Tylenol and Motrin couldn't handle.

Today, she went and got the outer stitches removed. The inner stitches will take around three months to dissolve. She is relieved that the stitches are finally out, but other than the absence of the blue wire, it still kind of LOOKS like the stitches are in!

This was our first experience with stitches, as none of us, including Hubs and myself, have ever had to have them. Well....I take that back. I have had them, but the stitches you get from having a baby are in a whole other category...

We are very blessed that we have a wonderful doctor who is exceptionally skilled at stitching, and that she did not cut her leg any worse than she did.

I am now being that over-protective, annoying mother who is trying to eradicate any and all sharp objects from our home (like that is even possible!), and over-using the phrase, "Be careful!"

But, HOW did she cut her leg open in the first place? And, on what?

She said she was standing up on a chair, putting the hamster back in his cage. She jumped off the chair, like she always does, and felt a scratch. She said that is all it felt like.....a scratch! She didn't know that it was worse than that until she looked down and saw the damage. What happened was that there just so happened to be an 8x10 piece of glass from a picture frame on the desk (left over from a fair project), and the point of it was hanging ever so slightly over the edge. When she jumped down, it cut her, just as if she had used a fillet knife to slice open her leg.

When we came back home, I expected to see blood all over the place in the bedroom where it happened. But, there wasn't. There wasn't even very much blood on the glass itself. And the strange part? The glass did not even fall off the desk!

It was still perched there, just waiting for it's next victim....