Strep, Stitches, Staples, and Splinters

We have had a crazy streak injuries for Connor lately. And by crazy, I mean unbelieveable! In the past 2 months, we've visited our doctor's office 7 times, made 2 trips to the emergency room, and visited the urgent care center twice. Connor has received 2 stitches, 2 staples, 3 positive strep tests, 6 antibiotic prescriptions, and 1 shot of medicine to the butt. Is it just me or does this kid need to be covered in bubble wrap?!

It started in May with a case of strep throat. For some reason, 3 rounds of antibiotics have failed to wipe it out so we will soon be on our way to an Ear, Nose, and Throat specialist for a possible tonsillectomy. I'm sure that will be another post soon (*sigh*).

During our week of VBS, Connor was acting goofy and walked backwards into the bar of one of those heavy glass doors. When I saw the injury, I knew right away that he probably needed stitches.

The aftermath of Connor versus the door handle.

We just happened to have a doctor's appointment scheduled that afternoon to re-check Connor's strep throat, so we asked that doctor to stitch Connor's injury. (Connor's regular pediatrician was out of town for a summer trip.) They numbed the area for about 30 minutes and then fixed it up with 2 stitches. Connor asked me to sing to him while the doctor was working on him, so I sang his favorite song from our week of VBS, "You You You." It was a really sweet moment when the nurse and doctor started singing along with me, and Kaitlynn chimed in as well. Connor was very brave and did great!

Close-up of the injury before stitches.

Numbing his injury.

Getting the stitches. He was so brave!

Stitches done.

3 days after he got his stitches, we spent the day with Julie and Michelle and their kids at Julie's house. The kids had a blast swimming and playing together. Julie, Michelle, and I were downstairs in the kitchen and the kids were upstairs playing football in the gameroom. They were mostly throwing the ball and running after it. All of a sudden, we heard a commotion upstairs and Connor was crying. Julie, Michelle, and I looked upstairs to see what had happened, and all we saw was Connor crying and holding his head which was completely covered in blood. It was a shocking sight. All 3 of us Moms screamed and then ran upstairs. There was so much blood covering Connor that we had no idea where or how badly he was injured. He was holding the side of his head and said he fell down playing football. We quickly got him downstairs and tried to begin wiping away the blood, which was covering his entire body and even poor Julie's carpet and floors. After some cleaning and wiping, a cut about 1.5 inches long began to emerge on the side of Connor's head, and I knew right away he would have to have it treated at the ER.

I left Kaitlynn with Julie and then took Connor to Texas Children's Hospital in Katy. There was a long wait, but luckily Connor's injury was no longer bleeding heavily. The nurse and doctor agreed that Connor's cut needed intervention, and we decided on staples rather than glue since we were heading for a beach vacation in a few days. (The ER doc felt that the staples were a better choice so that Connor could swim in the ocean during our trip.)

I was horrified to find out that doctors don't use any numbing when they staple an injury. The ER doc took a stapler and just stapled Connor's cut together, BAM! BAM! He cried SO hard and I felt so bad for him, but luckily Michelle had already brought him a large Sprite from Chick-fil-A which distracted him from the pain and made him feel better. We were sent home with instructions to get the staples removed in 5-7 days, which was right in the middle of our Destin vacation.



Waiting at the ER with his head injury.



Here you can see his injury with all the blood on his shirt.

He was quite the sight at the ER with his head injury, stitches in his cheek, a black eye, and bloodied clothes.

Getting his head wound washed, ready for staples.

The aftermath of Connor's football game.

Julie gave Connor this Superman shirt the night of his injury -- now his favorite shirt!

A close-up of the staples a few days afterwards - it seemed to get worse before it got better.

We wanted Connor to have fun and be able to swim in the pool and beach while on vacation in Destin, but we were concerned about possible infection and further injury with his staples. We visited Connor's doctor to get his stitches removed, and she suggested that we shave Connor's head and use waterproof bandages to protect the wound. Jeff decided that he was up for the challenge, so he gave Connor a buzz cut with a mohawk (at Connor's request, of course) and then used a razor to shave the area that needed to be hairless for the waterproof bandages. It looked crazy, but FUN trumps vanity in our house, ha!


His razor-shaved haircut.


The bandages weren't perfect but they worked great to allow Connor to have fun and swim during our vacation. On the 4th day of our trip, we visited a nearby urgent care facility to have the staples removed. The doctor there used a nifty little staple removal tool and the staples were out before we knew it. Phew!

Right before the staples were removed.

Staples removed -- happy camper!

The very next day, we were swimming at the big community pool in the neighborhood where we were renting a vacation house in Destin. Connor was playing hide-and-seek with his buddy Jackson, and Connor walked behind some sort of tree or plant there and managed to get a foot FULL of splinters. We had no idea about the splinters until we noticed Connor limping later that night. When I saw his foot, I groaned out loud. Splinters everywhere, ugh!! He had about 5 splinters on the bottom of his foot and 1 on the side of it.

Jeff is the splinter-getter in our family and immediately began trying to remove it. It was a very sensitive part of Connor's foot, and he was in intense pain as Jeff worked on it. Despite what we did, we couldn't get the splinter. The next day, it looked worse and Connor could barely walk on it. Jeff tried again to get it (while Connor trembled and screamed with everything he had) but we could already see signs of infection. Jeff decided to take him to the urgent care that we had already visited.

The doctor there easily fixed all the splinters on the bottom of Connor's foot, but that one stubborn splinter on the side of his foot was still not budging. The doctor gave Connor a shot in the foot, then proceeded to further cut the foot and pull out the splinter in several parts while Connor was restrained by Jeff and 2 nurses. It was extremely traumatic. Connor was sent home with oral antibiotics due to the infection from the splinter.

The next morning, Connor's foot looked worse despite the antibiotics. We continued to doctor it with hydrogen peroxide and Neosporin. I bandaged it up tightly with my supply of waterproof bandages and surgical dressing so Connor could enjoy his last day on the beach. Connor was walking better on his foot but we were still worried. By the end of the day, we were thinking we needed to visit the ER because the infection still looked bad. We decided to wait because we had a long drive home and figured the time off of his foot would help. By the time we returned home to Houston, the infection still looked awful so Jeff took Connor to our local ER.

The ER docs x-rayed Connor's foot and didn't see any remaining signs of foreign material. But since the infection was so bad, they gave him a shot of antibiotic in the butt along with yet another prescription of oral antibiotics that he has to take along with the first one. The shot was very scary and traumatic for Connor so I was glad that Jeff was there to handle that one!

The next morning, Connor's foot was finally looking better. The most challenging part was to try to keep him off of it and of course, no swimming!

The aftermath of the splinter versus Connor's foot. (The splinter won.)

It took several days for the infection, swelling, and redness to reduce, but after a few days the site finally looked better and Connor was walking normally. We visited Connor's pediatrician for a follow-up on his strep throat (again!) and the entire office was just shaking their heads at Connor's run of bad luck. Here's hoping that his luck changes and that he stays out of trouble for the rest of the summer!!