Finished work early and the weather was glorious. Lets go to the park I said. The offer was not met with great enthusiasm by The Boy who was still full of his visit of the Golden Hinde. Anyway, it's all in the marketing... enter devious mum who really feels like having a walk in the park. "Are you sure ? There will be deer, I can make hot chocolate for the thermos (and then the clincher argument), you know we could take your bike". The Boy is swayed. Off we go, the weather is still glorious, the autumn colours are plain gorgeous and there is enough deer to keep your average 6 year old boy happy. Mistake number 1: I did not take the mobile (I normally carry it when going to place where I know phoneboxes are scarce) Mistake number 2: I did not take the first aid kit (my hand bag is a tardis which would shame your average chemist, I told you I am a neurotic mum and some of my friend's children have a habit of hurting themselves on outing) Mistake number 3: Constance the lovely au-pair and I are discussing how The Boy is quite danger aware and how the boy is less accident prone than your average 6 year old (she has little brothers, she knows...). By now you can see we are truly tempting fate. The Boy decides we should take the path which will get us closer to the deer and promptly falls off the bike into dried fern and lacerates his eyelid. I rush to him and all I can see is his half closed eye and a blood soaked eye. It takes a little time to acertain the fern did not go trhough the eyelid and the eye should be ok. The twig still stuck in is not scratching the cornea. I order The Boy t keep his eye closed and use my glove to stop the blood (no first aid kit means no nice clean compress). I work out I cannot carry him and keep the pressure on the eyelid. We manage to get back to a more travelled path where Constance flags down a passer by for help. By now I feel rather faint. How pathetic. I used to work in a Boys Secondary Secondary School (even did stints in the medical room when the nurse was not in) so I have seen lacerations, blood and sprains in vast quantity and did not bother me one iota. However when the blood belong to The Boy I become totally useless. Mother's instinct stinks when it comes to dealing with injuries in a rational way. Because we parked at the other end of the park and I can't carry The Boy that far and do not feel quite up to driving yet and I don't know the directions to the local minor injury unit. Problem solved. The lady who lives in the park offers to take us to the hospital and another lady offers to drive my car + Constance the lovely au-pair + the bike to the hospital car park. Anyway the local hospital specialises in minor injuries so waiting time is mercifully short - you do not get put to the back of the queue because you are a minor injury since you are all minor (in and out in an hour as opposed to the 4 hours + customary in the local A+E department). They also have a great shop which sells cheaply everything needed to keep a little boy entertained while he waits for his turn. Sorry to bore you with the gory details but they decided skin loss was too extensive for stitching to be useful (would only narrow the wound by a couple of millimetres at best - not enough to warrant more pain and suffering), removed remaining twig, clean the wound, applied antibiotic ointment and adivised on after care. The boy is distraught. No rugby and no swimming for a fortnight. Damm! I am going to have to change the half-term plans. Good thing I had kept them between Constance and I.
It seemed like a good idea at the time - Monday 27th October.
13.11.03 23:01
