Son’s Injury Jolts Her Into Hyper-Reality

It wasn’t Alexander’s usual cry. No, this was an urgent wail, spiked with the terror and hysteria that bring parents running.

My husband, David, was the first to reach our 17-month-old, who stood near the closed door, his arm outstretched as though he were pointing. His finger was caught inside. The tip of his left pinkie, to be exact.

And off to the side, a little confused about why his brother was howling so loudly just because he had closed the door, stood Adrian, our 3 1/2-year-old.

As David opened the door, releasing Alexander’s finger from its prison, blood spurted. David picked him up and ran for the bathroom, already thinking about bandages, pressure points and 911. Quickly, he tried to whip a bandage around the finger, but Alexander promptly tore it off.

I heard David curse, then mutter. “We have to get him to the emergency room.”

At the moment the scream had jolted us all into hyper-reality, I had just awakened, put on leggings and fuzzy slippers and was heading downstairs for a cup of coffee. Now David and I collided in the hallway, that awkward and slow-motion dance that seems to take an eternity but actually transpires within seconds.

“Should we try to bandage it to stop the bleeding?” I asked David, as Alexander held up his mangled finger, his little body shaking with sobs. The tip looked like macerated hamburger, a meaty pulp from which streamed rivulets of fresh blood. Instinctively, we elevated his hand above his heart, which we knew would quell the bleeding.

It was 8:30 on a weekday morning, but thankfully David had long ago planned to take the day off. What a nightmare it would have been to deal with this on my own (I work at home).

We got into the car, and I sat in the back, contorting myself to keep Alexander’s hand elevated and stroking his face. I ached to hold him against me and cuddle him. To distract him, I tried to sing his favorite bedtime songs but got choked up, so I settled for humming and mindlessly whispering, “It’s OK, it’s OK,” over and over again.

*

David maneuvered the car in and out of traffic, cursing the usual bad drivers with deadly venom while we both fielded a barrage of questions from Adrian. Why is Alex crying? What’s an emergency room? Is he going to get a shot? What’s going to happen to him?

It was clear Adrian had no idea he was the culprit. After explaining that we were going to the hospital so the doctor could sew Alexander’s finger back together because it had gotten mangled when Adrian closed the door on his finger, I paused.

“It’s all your fault!” I wanted to scream, but it wasn’t fair to make him feel guilty; he had no idea that Alexander’s finger had been in the jamb. Still, the gravity of the situation called for some accountability.

So I took a deep breath and asked “Why did you close the door on him, Adrian?”

“Because I didn’t want him to get out,” he answered with the unswerving logic of a 3-year-old.

We explained that he should never close the door on his brother again because it could hurt Alex very badly. He promised. But it was the solemnity he might use when vowing never to throw a ball inside the house again. Clearly, we would have to work on the topics of infant frailty and danger some more at home.

Still wearing my fuzzy slippers, I trundled into the emergency room at St. Joseph Medical Center in Burbank with Alexander, David bringing up the rear with Adrian. While David dealt with the paperwork, the triage nurse gingerly applied a bandage to Alexander’s finger. Soon an emergency room doctor was unwinding the gauze.

“Be careful, it’s a mess in there,” I told the doctor, then cringed inwardly. What a stupid thing to tell an emergency room doctor.

“Don’t worry, I’m being careful,” he responded.

The doctor manipulated the tissue and probed delicately as I held Alexander’s hand, restraining him each time he screamed and tried to jerk away.

Then the doctor looked up.

“This looks worse than it is,” he said, as waves of relief washed over me. “The bone’s not affected. It wasn’t severed completely. We’ll just sew it back up, and there should be no lasting harm. We’ll try to save the nail; it’ll protect the nail bed.”

And then he was gone.

It took over an hour for him to come back. I had seen several ashen-skinned elderly people being wheeled in from ambulances, and since Alexander’s injury wasn’t life-threatening, I knew the hospital staff had moved on to real emergencies.

*

At some point, Alexander finally grew exhausted from crying and lay quietly with his head on my shoulder, his eyes still moving alertly. They shifted us into the children’s room, which had cartoon characters painted on the wall, and he pointed at them weakly with his good hand. I was surprised they didn’t give him a painkiller during the wait, but maybe this isn’t commonly done with such young children.

Finally, a phalanx of medical personnel came bustling in, snapping on surgical lights, carrying blankets, stripping my son down to a diaper and explaining that they would be putting him under conscious sedation, which would put him in a dream state and immobilize him. Then they would give him a local anesthetic before they began suturing. They estimated it would take about five stitches.

Nervously, I signed the consent form for the sedation after being assured that Alexander would be hooked up to monitors to make sure his vital signs remained normal. Slowly, my baby stopped struggling. His eyes grew glassy, his body rigid, teeth chattering, pinned like a naked little butterfly to that steel surgical table. I covered him with blankets, stroked his head and crooned, not sure if he could hear me.

Throughout this ordeal, Adrian hung out with his Dad, still peppering him with questions about Alexander’s condition and various pieces of medical equipment in the room. At one point, I saw him just sitting there quietly, and my heart went out to him. Walking over, I hugged him, whispering that the doctor was sewing up his baby brother’s finger to make it better.

As the needle went in and out, Alexander twitched several times, and I wondered whether, despite the sedation, he felt any pain. How could he ever tell us? Soon, it was over. Another technician bandaged the finger, trying to baby-proof it. We were told to take Alexander to our pediatrician in two days to make sure the swelling had gone down and the wound hadn’t become infected.

After that, we’d have to change the dressing every two days. The stitches could come out in 10. The nail should grow back in several months, and he should regain feeling within six. Best thing of all, they said, he wouldn’t remember the accident.

Once the sedation wore off, Alexander drifted into real sleep, and he slumbered on for an hour, oblivious to his surroundings, the beeping of machines, the murmur of anxious voices in the hallway. I looked into a mirror and saw my matted, uncombed hair, my T-shirt splattered with blood, my fuzzy slippers. And I knew that everything was going to be all right.