A few weeks back I had to take Piper to Urgent Care. I was making cookies and had told Piper that she could have the empty vanilla bottle for her play kitchen once I had washed it out. I went in the other room and she soon came to me with the vanilla bottle stuck on her middle finger. The bottle had a flip-top cap and she had wanted to taste it so she stuck her finger in it. I tried to get it off using vegetable oil, soap, and then I tried to shrink her finger with cold water. No luck.
Off to Urgent Care. Rick was at work and couldn’t get home in time to go with us. I took Simon but I really should have had a friend come with me. He was happy and all but I didn’t even think to put him in the stroller so I had to hold him while trying to comfort Piper.
The doctor wasn't great. He didn’t even introduce himself. He was not personable at all. He tried pulling the ring off but that didn’t work. Then he tried to cut a notch in it with a scalpel. Then he tried pulling again, which I had already tried and failed at. Piper was being so brave but then he hurt her when he was pulling and she didn’t say anything but a tear came down. He asked her if he was hurting her and she nodded. He told her that she should have told him that it hurt (as if you couldn’t tell that pulling on her knuckle would hurt). He finally got the ring off using a pair of scissors. That’s when we saw that her finger was cut at the knuckle. I assume that the doctor was the one that did it since there was no cut before he pulled on it and there was after. He seemed quite put out having to give her the stitches. If I had had more presence of mind, I would have been upset since he was the reason that she needed stitches in the first place. It didn’t occur to me until later that her knuckle was cut because of him.
So she ended up getting three stitches on the middle knuckle of her right middle finger. She was very brave for the shot of painkiller but she was upset by watching blood ooze out while he stitched her up. He even told her that there was nothing to cry about since it didn’t hurt. She was tired and upset and though the doctor was a father, he wasn’t very understanding. Uncaring doctors make you appreciate the awesome ones (Diane, Andy, Jef, etc.). She was our little trooper.
P.S. When I gave her a bath the next day, I wrapped her hand in a plastic shopping bag with a doubled over rubber band. When she got out of the tub and I took off the rubber band, her hand was purple. Apparently it was too tight and she didn't say anything about it. I was doing all I can to make sure that we were getting the blood flow back into her little fingers.
