Today we got to spend the day in the emergency room.

This morning when Nels was playing he decided it would be a good idea to take all of the die-cast cars that were in the toy bucket and dump them all over the floor and then climb into the bucket to sit. Unfortunately when he stood up again, he lost his balance. Since the bucket is almost as tall as his waist, there was no way to step back to regain his balance and so he fell backwards…onto the cars that were all over the floor…and hit his head. I was able to stop the bleeding, after several minutes, but the cut was deep enough it looked like it needed stitches.

With our insurance, I have to call to get an appointment/referral for any kind of urgent care, but as soon as they heard where the injury was, I was told I HAD to take him to the ER. So I loaded all the kids into the car and headed to the hospital.

It’s great being deemed a non-emergency and made to wait all day long.

It would be nice if the triage nurse (in cases established as non-emergency, like ours) had the ability to give us the option of getting a referral for an urgent care clinic or waiting for the ER. If I could have, we wouldn’t have needed to wait SEVEN HOURS (with two two-year-olds stuck in a stroller without lunch or a nap) just to see the doctor.

After our whole day was shot, and Nels got two staples, he will be okay.

He is definitely all boy and the most rambunctious of my kids, because it is always him. It doesn’t seem to have phased him though, he his as happy as ever!