At the Car Wash

As promised, here’s the prolog to the She’s Getting a Stitch… post back on the 17th. Now some of this is second hand from what I remember Becky telling me, I wasn’t actually there for the accident.

I was getting ready to leave work (late again) at about 4:15 last Wednesday (16 AUG), when I get a phone call. It was Becky and she said she was calling from the back of an ambulance at the car wash. Apparently, Becky and the kids went to wash the car after running a few errands. Becky had decided that instead of going through the car wash as we usually do, she’d drive back to the coin-op bays and wash the car there. Of course the kids wanted to get out for the wash as they saw the perfect opportunity to reek havoc upon a previously unvisited and unexplored location.

Nick started out soaping the car down, but because of his stature and his deliberate speed, Becky decided to take over the soap brush and handed Nick the pressure nozzle to rinse off the car. After all, if you’ll remember your last visit to the coin-op car wash bays, they were “on the clock” so to speak. So Becky gets done soaping and scrubbing, and instructs Nick to “pull the trigger”. Now again, reach back into the dark crevices of grey matter and try and recall yourself the kick one of those pressure nozzles gives out. Now imagine that same force applied to a not quite 50 lbs. seven year old who has never fired one of these before. When Nick pulled the trigger to rinse off the car, the pressure nozzle flew out of his hand and rocketed toward Becky slamming her diagonally across her right eye.

As she related the story to me, I believe she told me her first thought was that she probably didn’t have a right eye anymore. She also mentioned that in situations where you aren’t allowed to “freak out”, it’s really amazing how calm you can be given the circumstances. She grabbed a wad of napkins from the glove compartment and applied them to her eye (I knew there was a reason to grab a handful of napkins from every restaurant we visit, it’s not just my OCD). Ashlee stood there just staring, awestruck. Nick, just as shocked, timidly asked Mom if she was all right. Again with that calm, Becky did her best to try and reassure the kids that she was all right (not knowing if she really was herself).

She walked over to the office and the person working must have been just as shocked at the kids. I’m sure the blood that had soaked through the napkins and was now rushing down Becky’s arm didn’t exactly help either. He asked if she wanted him to call the paramedics. She originally thought no, but finally asked if he would call 911.

We live a couple of blocks from the fire station and they were the first to arrive (just like Ashlee’s second incident). Kudos and thanks to the fire fighters that showed up first as they took over watching the kids, showing them the fire engine, giving Nick a fireman’s helmet and Ashlee a little teddy bear, and pretty much taking their minds off the fact that their Mother was hurt while also being the first ones to start caring for Becky’s injury. Thanks also to the paramedics that showed up next for their great care. They got the kids’ car seats out of the car and strapped them in to the back of the ambulance. After giving me a call to let me know what was going on, Becky and the kids were off for a ride in the ambulance to the ER.

I got to the ER a little after 5, about 10 minutes after Becky and the kids. The first thing I noticed walking through the halls was, “Gee, I’ve been here several times and I’ve never seen it this busy.” So I braced myself for a drawn out evening. About 5:30 or 6, the adrenaline foreman had decided he had put in enough overtime, called it a day, and the pain started edging its way to noticeability in Becky’s eye. It was a little while still before she was examined, and even a little while longer after that before they tried some 800 mg Motrin for the pain.

5:30 is also about the same time that Ashlee starting complaining about hunger pains and asking at a steadily increasing volume, “What’s taking so long? I’m starving!” On top of that, almost like clock work every 2-5 minutes, the patient across from us would groan with some un-diagnosable (not sure if that’s a word) pain. So somewhere in there I took the kids upstairs to get some dinner (there’s a Wendy’s in the hospital). We went back down and by then Becky had been examined and we were waiting for the ophthalmologist on call to come examine her. Her pain was still getting worse so they gave her the “good stuff” and that seemed to help a lot.

When the ophthalmologist arrived, we hiked over to their suite and he took a look at her eye. He told us that there were a lot black particles in there, that she had a large laceration of the white part of her eye, but that cuts in this area normally heal by themselves. Although he wasn’t too sure how this one would heal as he had never seen one this large and that it may need a suture or two. He also ordered a CT scan to make sure everything else checked out.

We weren’t sure how long the wait for radiology would be, and it was getting on toward 9, so I decided to take the kids home, get them ready for bed, call some friends and see if the kids could sleep on their couch for a couple of hours (thanks Jeremy and Andrea), then head back to the hospital. I got back around 10:30, and shortly after that they wheeled Becky off to radiology. Plus we were moved to a private room where Becky took a quick nap and I got caught up on a couple of podcasts while we waited for the radiologist to read the films.

Everything checked out OK so with a couple of prescriptions in hand and some info for an ophthalmology visit for the next day, we went and picked up the kids and got home between 1:30 and 2 am.

And finally, as you can read in my original post about the accident, Becky did end up having to get a little out-patient surgery the following day at her ophthalmology appointment. They ended up deciding to put a long suture in the laceration (which took all of a couple of minutes), and to clean out the tons of microscopic particles of mascara that had tried to find new homes in her eye (which took about an hour). And no, Becky didn’t get put to sleep for this procedure, just a little local anesthetic.

We need to get a time share in the ER. I think it will make our next visit that much smoother. Because with our family, it’s not if we’re in the ER again, it’s when.