this is hard for us to write. this was a moment in our lives that we would love to forget. trying to decide what pictures to share was difficult. but we wholeheartedly believe that when documenting our lives, we want to remember some of the hard times as well as the good ones so here it is.
we had made plans to visit family, meet their new dog that they had just rescued from the pound, then go and see Christmas lights. we never saw those Christmas lights. it happened so unexpectantly. the dog had been playing with seth for over an hour with no signs of any aggression. then everett wanted to join the fun. the dog must have gotten overwhelmed or something, and being an animal and unable to express herself in any other way, lashed out at our poor son as he held out a treat for her. she had bit him on the face and we all stood there for a moment in utter shock before the panic hit.
i grabbed everett and held a rag to his head while my brother grabbed his keys and we jumped in the car, both of us forgetting our wallets and phones. this left amber in a horrible situation, unsure of where we were going or the severity of the situation. she and my sister-in-law gathered the other kids to say a prayer for everett. meanwhile, my brother took us and headed to the nearest urgent care clinic. we arrived but they quite quickly told us that we needed to go to the emergency room. they did a quick patch up of his head and called ahead for us so that the hospital would be expecting us. we drove quickly to the hospital, amber met us there, and we got all checked in while they got a room ready.
during the drive, everett was obviously crying from the pain, but he seemed even more worried about what the doctor was going to do to him. when we made it to the emergency room, everett had tired himself out enough that he fell asleep in my arms. amber met us there in the little triage room shortly before they took us back to a different room. one of the nurses or family psychologist maybe (someone that specialized in helping children feel more comfortable) came and asked if we'd like a special blanket for him to help comfort him. she said he could choose one with balls on it or one with dogs on it. everett was out of it, but amber quickly told her that we would prefer the ball blanket considering we were there because of a dog bite. it was a slightly comical moment in a very stressful time - a tender mercy maybe. later everett told us that he would've chosen the dog blanket... kinda funny. but he now has a ball blanket that he's grown quite fond of to keep as a reminder of his emergency room visit.
we spent a while with everett waiting for the drugs to kick in, but he was eventually sedated and they had a plastic surgeon come and stitch him up. they counted more than 56 stitches! he had a cut on the side of his forehead, on his cheek, under his nose, under his lip, and straight through his lip. we had to wait in the waiting room for about 2 hours, which was pretty hard leaving him. and then we had to wait even longer for the drugs to wear off afterwards enough so we could take him home. after a quick stop at the drug store, we made it home around 1 a.m.
the next day we rested. we pulled out everett's mattress and had a movie day. everett was quiet most of the day, very out of character for him, mostly because he just couldn't talk well with the stitches in his mouth. we gave him some pain medication though and he actually did really well. the next day his face was a little more swollen and the light bothered him, but again not too bad. we think he recovered pretty quickly after what looked like it was going to take a lot more time.
on thursday we were told to go get the stitches looked at and taken out. so not even a week later he was able to get the stitches out. that was a little harder of an ordeal. the surgeon wasn't as child-friendly as we would have liked and it was a rough moment, but he was able to get the stitches out. we were so surprised how quickly it was healing. :)
it was a heart-breaking ordeal for us to see our happy and energetic little boy hurt and in such pain. but like all trials in all our lives, this too has passed. and because of it, we are hopefully stronger for it. and most importantly, we have learned to appreciate this little boy of ours a little bit more, even when he's acting crazy and doing cannonballs onto the couch. :)
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