Today I took her to the pediatrician to get the stitches out. I anticipated it would be rough, and unpleasant, and difficult.
It was even worse than I thought it would be.
Poor Sweet Rose. A 2 year old just does not understand why someone would need to pick stitches out of her head. It is just uncomfortable and irritating and annoying and she HATED IT! And boy did we hear from her! We had to hold her down, 4 grown women, and she thrashed and howled while I sang songs to her. That did help. I talked a lot to her and we had 2 breaks so I could cuddle her. If you read "2 breaks" ya gotta know it didn't go smoothly. There was one stitch that was tight and the physician's assistant just couldn't get it out (a nurse was holding Rose's head, but she still managed to twitch.) Finally, the PA called in one of the older doctors, who is long on experience but a little shorter on compassion and warmth. And this doctor took 30 seconds to get the stitch out. Lesson for the future, go with experience over warmth when stitches are going to be removed.
When the stitches were out, the PA and the nurse carefully put steri strips over the wound to pull it closed. They gave me extra ones to put on so when these "fell off", I could put new ones on.
Would it surprise you to hear that Rose pulled them off during nap time?
I'm not going to wrestle with her about this. It is hopeless -- if that girl doesn't want steri strips, she will not leave them on. She's 2. She's determined. She's stubborn. This is not a hill worth dying on.
And really, she looks pretty good. There will be a scar but I hope the hair in her eyebrow will hide it somewhat.
No comments:
Post a Comment