ER - Girl-Child Style

OK, so I would have taken her to the ER whether I could see the bone or not. Yes, I realize it costs $100 in co-pay, but that much blood warrants something more than "If you can't see the bone, I'll put a bandaid on it and go home."

Let me back into this.

Megs lives with her dad over the summer, and this year, she's a CIT at the local day camp. As part of what they do there, the kids work on community service projects and earn karma points.

This year's project is deforestation of the camp, and since Denver's been under drought for so long, they can't run controlled burns. They have the older kids from camp (under supervision, of course) with hand saws, pruners, loppers and whatever else they need. Meghan's tool of choice was a set of pruners, since she was removing small branches from a Douglas Fir that someone else had cut down.

As she's pruning away, she is (as girls will) talking to her best friend out there, and, well, not *quite* paying enough attention to the work at hand (no pun intended).

That's when (according to her), she pruned her left index finger along with the branch on which she was working.

Me: OMG!! Are you OK?!?!?

Her: Yeah, at first I was really mad, but then I couldn't stop laughing.

Me: LAUGHING?!? Is something WRONG with you???

Her: No, it was just funny. But mom - I had NO idea how much fingers bled! Both my hands were COVERED in blood!

Me (trying not to be sick as I'm sitting in traffic on the way to the Kimberton Fair with her brother): Uh, yeah...there are lots of blood vessels and stuff in them. Did you have to get stitches?

Her: Nah...the ranger said if I couldn't see the bone, it was OK.

Me: See the BONE?!? How deep did you cut?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

Her: Well, after I washed off all the blood and the ranger dropped half a bottle of ALCOHOL in it, which made me really MAD, we looked at it. It was deep. But we couldn't see, like, bone or muscles or anything. So he gave me a band-aid and some tape so it wouldn't get banged around.

Me (feeling slightly ill): Huh. Ok, did Dad look at it? (as if THAT would make a difference, since he doesn't *do* blood)

Her (laughing): Uh, that would be a "no." It's fine mom. Doesn't even really hurt anymore. Throbs a little, but it's not too bad.

Me: OK, sweetie. Make sure you keep Neosporin and bandaid on it.

Her brother (from the passenger seat): Tell her if she doesn't want a scar, it HAS to be Neosporin.

Me: Did you hear that?

Her: Yeah. I'm fine with a scar if it does - better story. Well, we're checking out at Barnes and Noble. Gotta go - love you!


Can I just tell you?? I would have had her butt SOMEWHERE...ER, doctor's office, whatever. "If you can't see the bone, it doesn't need stitches"?!? Oy.

I guess it could have been worse...she could have done it here and I would have made a scene and embarrassed her.

God forbid.