A Straddle Injury

We had another first recently, but not one that I was looking forward to: our first trip to the Emergency Room for the year.

It’s bad enough when your child gets injured but it’s extra terrible when you’re not around when it happens. I was actually out that night having quite a delightful dinner (steamboat! with my first yu sheng of the year!) with a dear friend and was driving home when I got a terse phone call. It was my husband telling me that Meips had cut herself and we needed to go to KKH immediately. I forced myself not to panic as I rushed home, imagining the worst.

Well, it turned out that our little missy had a bit of a freak accident. Somehow, while running around, she’d tried to jump or step over Noey’s train set, lost her balance, and fell on the one of the sheds. In the process, she managed to cut herself. In the groin. Apparently, there was lots of blood. I don’t know since I really didn’t dare to look. 

We whisked Meips down to KKH’s Children’s Emergency and were glad that when it is potentially an emergency, as this was, you get tended to pretty quickly. In between short spells of waiting, we managed to see a doctor and have her take a good look. She was able to determine that the injuries appeared to be external, which we were relieved to hear.

The next consideration was to determine that there was no injury to the urinary tract and that Meips was able to pee. We then spent some time convincing the little girl that she had to pee, which she was, perhaps understandably, not keen to do. We tried to cajole her into going, telling her that she’d be able to go home after that, but it only made her declare that she wanted to stay in the hospital! In the end, it was the promise of sweets that did the trick. When she managed to go without experiencing pain, I think all of us heaved a big sigh of relief.

With internal injuries seemingly not an issue, the question remained whether the bleeding could be stopped and the wound left to heal, or whether she would require stitches. I was really hoping to avoid stitches as they would have to put Meips under to do them and I really didn’t want that. So it was a waiting game for us to see if the bleeding would stop on its own. We got our own bed in the observation area and made ourselves comfortable.

How did Meips take all this? She was a real trooper, she was. She really didn’t like examinations, and whimpered most pitifully in a way that broke my heart every time the doctors wanted to take a look. But otherwise, with a tear-stained face and all, she bore with her injury quietly. They gave her a painkiller shortly after her initial examination and she visibly perked up after it took effect. We sang and prayed with her, and as she recovered her spirits, she grabbed my phone and started taking pictures of tired-looking Mummy and had lots of fun with selfies.

Eventually she passed out from tiredness. Her being able to sleep brought me some comfort. The doctors later returned and suggested an application of adrenaline to help stop the bleeding. We waited some more after that and were told that the results were good enough for us to be sent home, with an appointment for a review five days later. Meips slept through it all.

She woke up the next day just like her normal self and was most disappointed to be told that she would not be going to school for a few days. I was surprised and grateful about how okay she was, and indeed, she continued to heal well. There continued to be a bit of residual bleeding, but it was nothing that the doctor was too concerned about on our return appointment. 

So here we are, a week later, glad to have escaped this little crisis unscathed. We thank God for that. Apparently such straddle injuries (a new term we learnt that night) are fairly common amongst young children and fortunately, Meips was a minor case. Certainly a case for keeping them in diapers, if there was any! Noey had a big fright from the whole incident and quickly and willingly packed up his train set in the aftermath. So while my husband and I are now somewhat paranoid and have a strong urge to ban all potentially pokey toys from the floor, I guess that is somewhat unrealistic. We’ve given both kids a talking to about being careful and about not leaving their toys on the floor and not jumping over them, but I guess we’ve just got to accept this as the freak accident that it was and just be more careful next time.