2023 – January part 3

Hey there,

In my last post, I talked about something not-so-positive that happened when we visited the Chinese Garden. I didn’t want to bring down the mood of that entry so knowing what was to come, I held off so I could talk about it along with the remainder of the month.

Elijah was walking and there was a step down in one of the final areas we were checking out. He lost his footing and went head-first into the edge of a cement pillar. I saw the whole thing happen in slow motion, but unfortunately, I couldn’t stop it. The wife held her hand over it with pressure as we went to the front to get a bandaid. Elijah was crying saying it hurt (which I can imagine so, seeing the aftermath). Normally I’m not so likely to say “Yeah that is bad” but more of an “Ahh they are alright, just give them a minute” But this time after it happened I was like “Yep, that was bad, keep it covered,”

The area we went to got band-aids, and we had to fill out an incident report. They asked if we were in the part of the garden that had some restricted access (a few times) which would insinuate that we were at fault. A bit aggravating. At this point, Elijah was saying that he was feeling nauseous and like he wanted to sit down. He never lost consciousness or blacked out but I think his body was now processing the trauma. He wanted to lie down and throw up. The workers in the Garden were semi-freaking out. Mentioned how they needed to call some executive, asking if we wanted to call for an ambulance. We let them know we would call his doctor and see what they say.

We called an after-hours nurse line (since this was on a Saturday) and they said we should bring him into either Urgent Care or the ER.

When we left Arabella was super concerned about him. She let him sit in her seat, gave him everything he needed kept us updated (she was very concerned), and mentioned that he felt “shaky” getting in the car. It was sweet to see the care come out after we hear endless fighting daily. As you can see above, we went to Urgent Care. We figured there was a location that wasn’t super far from our house so we would take him to that location. The RN who saw him said “Hey, so just to let you know we don’t have the…” that was all I needed to hear. She continued saying that they didn’t have a numbing drug to do the stitches that he needed. Which meant that he would be in a lot of pain during the process. She was willing to do it if we wanted to – but if he moved there was also a potential chance of eye damage.

Yeah..hmmm let’s think about this. No. Just no.

They let us know that in that case, it would be better to take him to the emergency room. They recommended a couple (both were downtown), back where we were, and another 30-ish min away.

Ugh.

On the way, I was googling along with Maryia to see the hospital with the best reviews and overall best results in Portland. When something like this happened in Phoenix, it was a no-brainer. Take them to Phoenix Children’s Hospital (if you were wondering who the best in AZ was). Here?

Long story short, I ended up being a little bull-headed and said I wanted to go to Doernbecher’s Children’s Hospital. I simply wanted what I thought (from the information I had) was the best possible care.

We went inside and he was taken care of. Since it was an emergency room there was a chance of sickness spreading, so they recommended that Arabella and Luca, and I wait outside. We waited in the car. Below is the view that we had while we waited.

When the wife came out with Elijah he was acting all sorts of silly due to the numbing meds they gave him. Maryia said they had a whole team taking care of him. One person gave him cars (from Fast and the Furious) another person held an iPad-type device for him to watch a show, and mommy was holding his hand while the doctor and team were busy stitching him back up.

At the end of it, he got to keep the cars and they gave him a log truck to take home with him. They wanted to have this to be a positive experience for him. Man… I’m glad we agreed that this would be the place to go. The wife mentioned how she was impressed with the whole thing as well.

So what now? Well, after an event like that, we took the guy to his favorite place (In-N-Out) for a very late dinner. He even scored a milkshake. It was funny because we told him he could have an ice cream afterward – and he leaned over to me and whispered “Daddy, can sister get one too?”

“Yeah buddy, she can.”

just Pray