the story from the top

 as it was told to me, from several sources.....

during lunch on tuesday, 27 april in the year of our lord 2010, ms. mileidy and her friends (who shall remain nameless), were sitting on their lunchboxes, engaging in silly talk. apparently, one of such nameless friends yanked mileidy's lunchbox out from under her, causing her to topple backwards off the bench and split her head open on the radiator. another nameless classmate walked mileidy to the nurse, bleeding profusely from the head. (i was concerned to hear that an adult did not accompany them, since at any moment my child could have fainted, resulting in further injury...but...) she was cleaned up, bandaged, and the cafeteria lady brought a tiny stuffed bunny to the nurse's office while they waited for me. older brother seamus stuck his head in the doorway as he passed and uttered the encouragement of: "don't die." ah, the love.

at precisely the same moment, i was walking through a cellular void in the airport from my checkpoint through the underground tunnel and parking garage to my car. when i got the message, i frantically drove 25 miles to the school and took the leidybug to the emergency room. after following a series of confusing directions from my garmin, and ultimately finding the blue emergency hospital signs, we arrived on the GBMC medical campus. now i understood why the garmin was confused.

as far as "ease to get there" is concerned, GBMC fails utterly in my book. not only do they get an F, but a triple F for eFFing Failure. i spent 15 minutes looking for a place to park, because the 10 spaces marked "emergency patients only" were taken. yup. all 10. parking, parking everywhere, as long as you want to walk at least 1/4 mile to get to the door. carrying an injured child. bleeding from the head. what if it had been a compound fracture of the leg??? no wheelchairs available at the elevators, nothing. aside from the parking fiasco, GBMC was awesome.

we were in and out of the emergency department, from front desk to discharge in under 90 minutes. they did a great job of hiding exactly what was going on, without scaring my daughter. miliedy was immensely impressed with the twinkling stars on the ceiling above the nurse's station. first, nurse kristin removed the sarajevo war victim head dressing prom do and swabbed leidy's head down with some iodine solution, making her bloody head look a sight more gruesome. next, she gave mileidy a numbing gel and an ice pack for 10 minutes. then the doc came in and stabbed my child in the head multiple times with a syringe the size of a honda fit to numb her up quite a bit more. fortunately leidy had no idea that there was a needle involved... that could have gotten Fugly. lastly, a package arrived looking oddly like a cross between a cordless glue gun and a star trek phaser, with a fully loaded complement of staples. doc trimmed a few hairs from around the wound, told mileidy to brace herself for a little pressure and stapled away.

and my babycakes did not cry. not a tear. she squeezed her new bunny (named stitch, by the way) when it hurt, just like the school nurse taught her. after staple number four, she un-squinched her eyes, and said, "whew. glad that's done. it was starting to hurt a lot."

i watched some guy staple my kid's head. *gulp*

it took a lot for my mommy instincts to not take over and rip the gun from his hand and staple his nuts to his chin. my hands were thrust into my pockets, balled into fists, repeating "it's a good thing, it's OK, he's a helpy-guy..." inside my head.

it was harder to keep her wiggly little butt seated during the paperwork part than it was for her to get her head put back together. she walked herself back to the car, but was pale, shaky and light-headed by the time we got there. (stoooopit parking garage.) and then i was like, "um, i don't have any cash to pay for parking." there wasn't exactly an ATM available either. i don't feel upset at all about the parking lot losing my $4 in revenue. i mean, who checks their pocket or stops at the bank on the way to the ER anyway??

The Bravest Princess In The Land requested papa john's for dinner, so papa john's she got. she relaxed at home for the night, and was sad to hear she would miss her turn on the school's wednesday morning announcements. so i told her she could go for the first 5 minutes of school. as much blood that gushed from her head, i'm sure a bunch of kids were scared, so i thought it would be good for them to see that she was not dead. we woke her up twice in the night to make sure all was well, and to deliver tylenol. she was cheerful, if pale, this morning , and extremely proud of her brevity. and her cyborg-stapled head. which brings us to lunch time on wednesday, where TBPITL is watching barbie movies, learning how to use the intercom feature on the telephone to fetch mommy, and is headed to nap land shortly.

TBPITL thanks everyone for their well wishes, and wil be returning to school thursday, minus gym and recess for the remainder of the week. she is scheduled to get her staples removed next wednesday.