My sister is a very good writer, although she doesn't believe it. Her letters to the family are a joy to read for the writing, and very often a terror to read for the events therein. After the last one, I just had to ask if I could post it here on my blog. So, with permission, I present for you the adventure of (my niece) Jenna's Wednesday:
We've decided that it's not us that are jinxed - it's Wednesdays! Definitely Wednesdays.
This week's horror day was a Wednesday (of course!) field trip with Jenna's class to clean up a local city park. For 40 man hours of work by the class and parents, they earn $250 from the city -- to be used for field trips, class books, computer games, etc. So, we went to clean up the park!
My group of kids was assigned to rake up the oak leaves that were molding and mildewing underneath and around the park entrance sign. So, I sent two kids up onto the hill that the sign was sitting on, and two of us at the bottom of the hill and did a "pass the leaves part-way, next team brings them down to the ground" routine -- trying hard NOT to have anyone get hurt falling to asphalt from the top of a 10 foot, slippery wet hill!
We were doing fairly well actually -- although our job was BY FAR the biggest one of the whole assignment. Others were planting tulips, picking up trash and sanitizing picnic tables and play equipment. Eventually, the teacher came over and realized that our hillside was the size of two big backyards and that we were not going to be able to finish it up all alone, just the four of us. So, she sent another team over to help out.
Unfortunately, this second team was all boys and behaving as such, they got a little careless/rambunctious with the lawn rakes. Anyway, I was at the top of the hill when I heard Jenna scream that she'd been hurt. This was then followed by a panic-stricken, decibel rising, screaming fit, "I'm bleeding, I'm BLEEDING, I'M BLEE-EE-EE-D-D-I-I-N-N-G-G-G!!!!!!"
So, I'm yelling at her to stand still and put pressure on the wound (from the top of the hill, I could see the blood spurting everywhere!) and I scrambled down the hill as she started to really freak out. So, knowing my Jen as I do, I grabbed her arm and yelled into her screaming face, "Stop it, right NOW! You're going into shock." It startled her enough to make her stop screaming and I quickly checked her face to find a big gash on her lower lip -- bleeding profusely and now covered in the dirt that had been on her work gloves when she pressed them to her mouth! JOY!!
Well, long story short -- her good friend, Julian, had been raking madly (working hard, truly) and had already hit her in the back and arm with the rake handle at least twice, but this time, he got her in the mouth hard enough to split her lower lip to at least 1/4" deep. So, Julian is cowering behind her, crying in guilt and fear, Jenna is whimpering (although thankfully no longer screaming hysterically!), the rest of the kids and the other parent are all asking, "Is she o.k?" "Is Jenna o.k.?", and I , (at least this is what the other parent told me later -- I don't remember much about it, myself!), said calmly, "No, she's really not o.k, guys. We're going to go find [the teacher] and get the first aid kit. And Nick, get out of the street, young man - there's a car coming!" This impressed the other parent since she was Nick's mother! She later said that she was so impressed at how cool and collected I was about the whole thing. I confided to her that I usually do quite well in the emergency itself, it's 8 - 10 hours LATER that I fall apart! ;-)
Anyway, we washed the wound as best as possible with just a lawn pressure hose for a water source...FUN! The school's first aid kit was ridiculous! All I needed were a few 2x2s to stop the bleeding, and instead, I was handed a compressed surgical wrap that was 2 FEET wide and 3 FEET long -- would be useful if she'd had a huge, gaping chest or belly wound! And, the fancy, "smash and shake" chemical ice packs didn't even work!
Fortunately, one of the other mothers had a small kit in her car with some antibiotic lotion and some big bandaids, so we fixed Jen up long enough to get back to the school (along with another child who banged his head on the picnic table he was cleaning under) -- only to find that the "school nurse" WASN'T a nurse! She kept trying to talk me into putting a butterfly bandage on Jen's lip, and I kept insisting that the wound WASN'T cleaned properly and you don't close up a wound with dirt inside it! DUH!!
So, since the bleeding had stopped, and poor Julian still was crying in class, thinking that he had killed Jenna - (she was COVERED in blood spatters - shoulder to toe), I sent Jen back to class for the last 20 minutes of the day while I called various clinics and [my husband] to arrange for her to go to the hospital and get some professional care/opinions.
ANOTHER Wednesday at the hospital!
Eventually, the plastic surgeon decided to put in two little stitches until Monday -- just to get the lip lines (the "deluvian crest lines" or some such thing) to match up and heal together properly so that she wouldn't look like she had a fat lip for the rest of her life....(THANK YOU!) And Jen went back to school on Thursday with two stitches for everybody to "ooh" and "ahh" about. The doctor didn't want it covered with anything except a generous coating of antibiotic ointment (to prevent keloids hopefully), so they are sitting right "out there" for the whole world to see.
At least poor Julian has stopped crying by now! Everybody knows it was an accident, and Jen will live -- hopefully with no more than a tiny vertical scar on her lower lip....but it's beginning to look like Wednesdays aren't good for us! Next week, we've decided to skip Wednesday and have two Thursdays instead.
Happily, Jenna is now able to smile again without pain. I'm looking forward to seeing her at the Thanksgiving party and seeing how she's healed up by then. And, as always, I'm amazed at my sister's wonderful ability to tell the story so you feel like you are there. By the way, in case you were wondering, Jenna is 8 years old.
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