Monday, August 14, 2006

It All Started With Korean TV!

Last night, I was watching Sunday night game shows on KBS World. They have this soccer show that is a group of kids coached by different Korean celebrities. The kids play teams from other countries. In last night’s show, they were in England playing a group from an English soccer club. Super cute stuff…. Anyway, on they show, they had the "Free-Style" soccer champ who did all sorts of tricks with the soccer ball- bouncing it on his head, feet, legs, knees. Cool stuff and fun to watch. My son loved it.

So, this morning, my 5 yr old daughter Emma sat down at the kitchen bar to eat breakfast. She had already taken a bath and was dressed for the day. She was just digging into her Fruit Loops when brother appears with a ball, saying "Look Mommy, like THIS!" He proceeds to bounce the ball twice off his head, and before I could utter one syllable of "not in the house", the ball bounced off his head, onto the counter, and into the bowl of Fruit Loops. The bowl of Fruit Loops shot onto Emma’s lap, then to the floor, where the bowl split into 3 pieces. Hana the lab was quick to move in for the spoils. I cleaned up the bowl, then took Emma with me to the shower to hose her down. I was washing her hair when she slipped and did a face plant in our shower. Poor thing split her chin wide open. One look at the cut, and I knew she needed stitches.

Now, in Guam, medical treatment can be a bit scary. The hospital is not accredited and suffers from lack of doctors and money. In the past, I could use the emergency room on the Navy Base, but since we moved off base, we are no longer eligible to use them. So, I called our local clinic, which has a prompt care and was hoping they could see her. Yes, bring her in! Thankfully, my husband had arrived back in town Saturday night. I was able to call him at work to pick up our son, and then we were off to the clinic. At this point, Emma’s only worry was whether she would get a "girl band-aide," but I knew getting her to hold still for this would be next to impossible.

They took us in right away at the clinic, and I could tell there was some discussion among the nursing staff as to which doctor to get to do the stitches. I started getting nervous about the entire thing. I could tell a nurse we call "Auntie Fay" wanted Dr, Pittman to do it. We waited several minutes then they had me resign the consent to treatment form because they did indeed change doctors. THANK YOU Auntie Fay. As it turns out, Dr. Pittman, who we had seen before through family practice, has extensive experience in doing stitches on the face. Whew!

Dr. Pittman asked Emma "are you scared?" and she said "yes". He explained that the painful part was the first shot, but then she wouldn’t feel a thing. We tried to do it without holding her down, but one look at the needle and she was hysterical. So, they wrapped in a sheet, and we held her down. I basically laid on top of her! UGH! They used 3 shots to numb her, and she was screaming the entire time. Through her sobs, she demanded, "ARE YOU A DOCTOR?" and he said "yes" and she shot back, "WELL YOU ARE A BAD DOCTOR". We all couldn’t help but laugh. Finally, after she was numb, she did settle down to be stitched. As she was calming down, she said, "I’m sorry I called you a bad doctor. You are really a good doctor." It was SOOO cute! I kept my hands over her eyes, and she held very still. One of the receptionists came back to see her. She asked if we knocked her out! She said the entire waiting area could hear her screams of "bad doctor." I said they probably heard her in Saipan!

Ten stitches later we were out of there. Dr. Pittman said that mom probably needed a valium after that! Haha. Actually, I was very pleased with the care she got and so relieved that it went well. When we left, Emma even said Kamsahamnida to the Korean nurse that was helping us. As for big brother, no more soccer tricks in the house!

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3 Comments:

At 11:18 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh Julie! What a morning. Give Emma a hug for me and tell her that D has had chin stitches, too. Instead of "bad" D said "stupid" - the worse word he could come up with. Guess Jack won't be playing ball in the house anymore! Hugs to all,

Ann

 
At 6:55 PM, Blogger Julie said...

Haha I guess I'm glad Emma didn't shout Stupid Doctor, tho she has called her brother stupid many times! Thanks for the post Ann!

 
At 4:46 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Your post was so cute and funny even with it being a very traumatic event. Your daughter is such a cutie! You won't ever have to worry about her not being able to stand up for herself.

 

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