A&E

A first which I had hoped to avoid: Noey’s first visit to the A&E.

Unfortunately that’s where we went on Sunday night.

A glass panel fell from a cupboard at my MIL’s place while we were there for dinner, and fortunately, no one was in the area when it fell. We picked up the pieces, swept up all the bits we could see and brought out the vaccuum to do a thorough job. Thereafter DD got down on his hands and knees to check the floor before we allowed Noey to walk in. And still, Noey somehow managed to step on something and ended up with 2 tiny nicks on the last toe of his right foot.

Sigh.

It bled and he howled big time, making us rather alarmed. This little boy regularly suffers knocks and bumps and scratches his knees, and while he might whine when that happens, we have never heard him cry so long and pitifully. It was heart-wrenching hearing him go, “Painful! Painful! Mummy sayang!”. We cleaned it up as best we could and tried to examine his foot without much success. Noey wouldn’t let us hold it for too long. He calmed down soon after and I was relieved to see that he could put weight on his foot without pain. However, for the next half and hour, he would intermittently stop short in what he was doing, lift his foot up, cry “painful!” and ask to be carried. DD was convinced that there had to be a glass shard embedded in his foot. I wasn’t so sure, but for peace of mind, we decided to take him to NUH Children’s A&E to get it checked out.

Perhaps it was because everyone was getting ready to watch the Germany-England game — there was only one person ahead of us in the queue. We got seen to pretty quickly and an x-ray was ordered just to confirm if there was any glass in his foot. I really prayed that there wasn’t as it seemed to me that they would have to put Noey under to do any kind of procedure since he was so hostile to the doctor.

The x-ray eventually came back clear. Thanks be to God for that.

In the meantime, the boy was cheerfully wandering around the waiting area, poking his nose and fingers into vending machines and squeezing between chairs. I shook my head in exasperation looking at him gleefully walking around — if he’d shown such good spirits earlier, I probably wouldn’t have rushed him down to the hospital!

We’re not out of the woods though. For some reason, he developed a fever overnight and woke up warm. While the fever’s come on and off — he was hot when we tucked him into bed tonight — he ate, slept and played regularly throughout the day so I’m not too worried. YET.

What’s been funny is the way he’s been milking the symphathy he’s been receiving for his injury. At my Mum’s this afternoon, I was told that he’d clutch his foot and complain that it was painful and ask to be carried. Everyone obliged of course, until he clutched the WRONG foot and complained of pain. Tsk tsk.

Well, right foot or wrong foot, I just hope it means that he’s better. And for a while, Mama here will be the sucker and carry him all he wants.