Quality Time in the Emergency Room

We had a day of shopping, taking pictures and visiting the glacier. We were in to the camp ground late. Boo and Beeray decided that they would shower at night rather than in the morning. It was cold (we are in the valley below the glacier) and not quite dark. They decided to run to the showers. Boo took a short cut around a car. She hit a bit of mud, her legs went out from under her and smashed to the ground.

She hit a rock and tore a 5 inch flap off of her right knee. She also picked up half the forest in that huge wound.

She walked/hopped back to RiVa with blood pouring out of her leg. Boo was terrified. There was so much blood. She kept telling me "Mommy, I'm so scared!" over and over. She was white as a ghost and in terrible pain. Through the tear in her jeans, I could see adipose tissue the layers of skin and dirt, rocks and stones. It was clear that this nasty gash was going to need stitches but only after it had been thoroughly cleaned. I unhooked RiVa and started driving without any plan other than find an emergency room. Beeray programed Maggie for "hospital". She then sat on the floor next to Boo to comfort and help her. It took us about a half hour to get the hospital emergency room because the first emergency room we tried was a private urgent care clinic and was closed.

What a change from the emergency rooms in our area of California! The emergency room waiting area was empty. In the back there were true emergencies such as heart attack, gall bladder and a drunk who had been beaten by his friends and the requisite nurses and doctors but the emergency room wasn't filled with the non emergencies that we see in Southern California emergency rooms.

They saw us right away. A nurse numbed the knee and started to clean as much of the stones, pine needles and dirt out of the wound as he was able. The cleaning was done by the physician and a nurse. The cleaning took over an hour. It was really nasty. After the stitches they x-rayed her leg. No broken bones.

Beeray was a saint, taking care of her sister and comforting her. At the very end, when we were waiting for them to discharge us, Beeray went out to RiVa and fell asleep.

I was a mess. I was having trouble dealing with them dissecting stones, sticks and dirt from Boo's leg. Three times they had to put me on a stretcher because I was about to faint. UGH!

All told, our emergency room visit in Juneau lasted about 3 hours of quality time and togetherness. We got back to the camp by 1:30 am. Boo has 4 stitches inside and 8 outside. She has a splint to keep her from bending her leg. She has instructions that she is not to do any strenuous exercise for the next couple of weeks. She is going to have a nasty scar on the right side of her right knee.