Head Injury #2

It's been almost three years since we had to get Jiro's head glued together. The first time was in Kansas, at midnight.

There have been plenty of close calls and many a butterfly bandages since, but we had to take a second trip to the ER.

On Wednesday I thought it would be fun to take the monkeys swimming after camp. We were there for about 30 minutes before Jiro busted his head open on a metal pipe near the small green slide. He and Satchel were chasing each other and he tripped on something. I was sitting about ten feet away, but managed to miss the entire episode.

I saw the lifeguard run over, so naturally I did too. Jiro was wailing and holding his head. I picked him up and the lifeguard told me I could get a band aid if I needed one by the locker rooms. I started walking that way and by the time we got there, Jiro's face was covered in blood. Naturally it freaked him out, but I have to say I was extremely calm. I know heads bleed a lot, and Jiro has banged his up enough that I've stopped panicking.

Erin, the head lifeguard, also stayed calm. She did a very nice job stopping the bleeding, and once I could actually see the cut, I said, "I guess we should head to the ER, huh?" Had Warren been on duty, he might have opted for a butterfly bandage from Walgreens, but I was erring on the side of caution.

Erin bandaged Jiro up, Satchel went and got him a snack, and I took pictures. I actually had to tell him not to smile in this one.



We put on our cover ups, got our stuff together, and drove to Germantown Methodist. Thankfully it was not a busy night. Head injuries get you moved through pretty quickly though regardless. We were in triage after about 4 minutes and had a room maybe 5 minutes after that.

We were quite a sight in our toweled hoodies. As we walked to our room all of the nurses joked, "I wonder where you guys have been."



The doctor came to the room right away, and our only trauma of the evening was getting the JCC bandage off of Jiro's head so the doctor could see the cut. He thankfully said we could glue it, rather than stitch it, and went to get ready.

Meanwhile I tried to convince the monkeys that South Park was not an acceptable show to watch in the ER. Thankfully they changed the channel before the doctor came back. Jiro's head was glued in a matter of minutes and we were told to wait ten minutes before leaving. During that time a sweet nurse brought the boys each a popsicle and a cup of ice water.



Jiro has a nice bump, and can't swim for 5-10 days, but he's going to be just fine.