About Last Weekend
Let me just say, everybody is fine. But that picture up there, in Brooklyn's sweet note to her Daddy, pretty much sums up our weekend. Blood. Lots of it. Flowing out of Sean's foot.
On Sunday afternoon Sean was using a weed-eater to try and tame our wild, jungle grass in the yard. This weed-eater, rather than having a nice, docile nylon string was basically a little metal machete propeller. Which, incidently, is not so safe when you accidently get your foot in its way.
Ugh. Let me just say that seeing my husband's foot bleeding profusely was mighty disconcerting. I worked in a dialysis unit, mind you, and regularly dealt with people's blood. But when it is somebody you love, it just can't be helped to feel a little woozy and worried at the sight.
Praise God, it wasn't a toe and Praise God it wasn't any worse. We were able to drop the girls off with our teammates and get him to the local hospital for stitches. Everything went so smoothly that I just can't help but think that your prayers on our behalf all these years were working. God was definitely with us.
Sean got two stictches (slightly disappointing considering all he went through to get them) and all is well other than a little soreness. Plus, we got to figure out some details about the local hospitals that we still hadn't investigated - such as where to go for stitches. For that, this hospital was definitely adequate....anything else? Um, how quick can we get on a flight to Jakarta? (It was the blood-splattered curtains that did me in.) But the nurses cleaned Sean up real good and used lots of iodine and sterile tools. Trust me, I was watching.
Also:
- At first, I was pretty sure I was going to see my husband either pass out or throw up. I was swiftly trying to think of ways to help him. Do you think any of my EMT or Dialysis training came into effect when I really needed it? Nope. I was useless.
- Don't ask me how or why, but Sean somehow ended up sitting in the bathtub with his foot up. Then, he asked for a sandwich. So, he sat in there, catching his breath and eating a sandwich for quite a while, while I made phone calls and tried to calm my own nerves.
- When we got to the emergency room, they took Sean back and I had to register him before I could go with him. The first thing I was asked (in Indonesian, of course) was what happened and what was hurt. Der.... I felt like such an idiot. I really wanted to go back with Sean and find out what they were going to do with him and so here is what came out, translated to English for you: "Um...he....um....foot...machine...cut....hair?" In my defense, the words for hair and grass are annoyingly similar. After I got that brain-freeze over, thankfully, my ENTIRE YEAR of language school did finally kick in. Sheesh.
- When I did finally join Sean in the examination room, things were already in full swing. (These people really were pros at stitching.) But Sean looked at me with very wide eyes and said, "What is a prophylactic? Is it, you know, that thing they put up...you know?" Why he thought they would give him a suppository for two stitches, I'm not sure, but honestly, I didn't know for sure what "prophylactic" meant either. (By the way, we had to look the word up when we got home. 50 points to the person who knows what it "prophylactic" actually means!)
You must live in an area where prophylactics for malaria are not needed. As an MK I was very familiar with the term ... Chloroquine anyone?
ReplyDeleteGood job! Prophylactics = any medicine or preventative measures to reduce risk of disease, infection, etc. So, the doc gave Sean anibiotics as a prophylacyic to prevent infection. But now that you mention it, I had heard the word "prophylacyics" in relation to malaria. Guess I always assumed it was the name of the medicine! You are right, we don't have to worry about malaria much here....though it does exist here, our risk of contracting it is fairly low.
ReplyDelete