One Sunday afternoon, he was playing in the kitchen while his daddy was going to make Jell-O. He pulled at the cupboard handles, even though he knew that it had been forbidden. Oh! This time, the latch gave and the cupboard door opened. What wonders could be contained behind this door?
Oooh, lots of cooking things -- a blender, a rice maker, a griddle, waffle-makers, a bread machine, a Kitchen Aid mixer (HEAVY!!) ... and SHINY! A food processor blade!
"Hmm," he said to himself, "This could be fun." And he reached out to grab it, like Sleeping Beauty reaching for that blasted spindle. However, instead of a deep slumber for a century, this resulted in BLOOD. LOTS OF BLOOD. Enough that his daddy grabbed the screaming little boy and raced him to the bathroom, trailing his mommy and sister in their wake.
The family ended up calling the doctor's office and making a visit into the next town, so the doctor could assess the thumb. It was covered in a pressure wrap. They called it a "Cookie Monster thumb." The children got stickers at the doctor's and popsicles at home.
After a few changes of the dressing, this little boy's thumb swelled up and turned some funny colors. His mommy and Mutti took him back to the doctor's (AGAIN) for advice and treatment. They ended up changing around how the thumb was wrapped ... the little boy had a "Rocket thumb," which was kind of fun ... and it felt much better, being able to get some air.
His thumb, though, continued to blister a bit and eventually, in a few days, his family took off the dressings entirely, allowing his thumb to be in the open air. His thumb-skin dried out and felt like old shoe leather. The once-swollen and blistered skin sloughed off as they used Bactarin and Aquaphor on the poor, dry skin. His mommy tried not to freak out or give herself an aneurysm thinking about it.
His mommy was also a blogger. A blogger who let her readers (all, what, SIX of you? Thank you, my dears. I love you eternally. You're better than bacon. And bacon is gooooooooood.) vote on whether or not they wanted to be faced with the pictures of the little boy's thumb.
There were two votes of "Bring on the gore!!!!!" and four votes for "Let's see what Llanna's stressing about". No one voted for her to hold back. So, here we are:
About a week later - July 11
You can see how much it swelled and blistered.
Above - July 13
The blistering is going down.
Still looks like Hell.
July 14 - Still REALLY swollen.
The skin, being out in the air, is really tough and dry.
Today (July 17)
Still swollen, the dried skin is sloughing off.
(Actually, most of the dry skin sloughed off shortly after this picture.)
You can see all the pink new skin through the bits of old, used-to-be-blistered skin.
You can also see on the top right side of Bruise's thumb where he lost the flap.
It should heal well. I'm waiting for the last of the dead skin to come off, the areas where the skin split (front knuckle) to heal, and for the swelling to completely subside.
I may have a while to wait.
But, yeah, that's really most of what's gone on with his thumb thus far. I think that the area where he was cut will heal up pretty well (partly due to all the swelling). He's using this thumb more and more. (Hopefully, he'll be able to hold his fork and all pretty soon.
While I was preparing the pictures for this post, he'd come by the computer and point and say, "Bruise ouchie! Rocket thumb! Ouchie. Bruise thumb hurt."
(It amused my dad, with whom I was chatting on the phone.)
But, phew! I'm so glad to finally get the pictures up and this post done. I started it around 9 this morning ... then, with phone calls and storytime and everything ... yeah. It's taken me a while.
So, tell me, does it look better or worse than you imagined?
2 comments:
That poor kid! I'm glad its finally healing. Go, Rocket Thumb!
OK, now I understand why you were freaking out! That cut looks nasty, specially the swelling and blistering! And really much worse than I thought it was. Poor little Bruise, it must have been very scary for him (and Mommy too^_^). Fortunatly, it seems as if an end is coming and he will have a nice "new" little thumb.
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