Frank is recovering just fine from the hole he got in his head last week.

Here’s something I didn’t have time to dwell on last week.

After Frank was finally triaged (He sat in the waiting room, bleeding, for about 40 minutes, until people started complaining. They even triaged a little girl who was laughing and skipping around her mother in the the E.R. before they looked at Frank!), we saw a doctor. They didn’t order x-rays or anything else. The doctor looked at him, felt the wound, and said, “I’m going to glue you right up.”

I thought he was kidding.

He came back with a tube that was, in fact, the “glue.” I’d read about it somewhere, that E.R. glue they can use instead of stitches now.

The doctor then took a bottle of some clear solution and a gauze pad, put some of the solution on the pad, and briefly swabbed Frank’s wound. He then proceeded to use the same pad to wash Frank’s entire face, which had lots of dried, crusty blood on it, in addition to sweat, dirt and even small pieces of grass from his outdoor accident.

Then, much to my horror, the doctor moved back to the wound and kept cleaning it with the exact same pad that contained all the dirt, sweat, and dried blood from Frank’s face! I was in shock. He then reached for the glue tube.

Not one to hold my tongue, I said, “Aren’t you going to clean the wound better? He stopped the bleeding with a dirty hat and his face is NOT clean!”

The doctor nodded and called for something else (I assume it was that iodine cleaning solution because it was that burnt orange stuff). He then really cleaned the wound, moving it back and forth, pouring stuff into it, wiping over and over, etc., with a clean pad this time. When he did that, of course, the wound started to bleed pretty heavily again. But, at least we were fairly sure he got the grass and sweat out of it!

Then, sounding disappointed, he said, “It’s bleeding too much to glue now. I’ll have to sew it up.”

We’d, of course, much rather Frank have a clean, stitched wound, than a filthy glued one! It is my opinion that the doctor knew cleaning the wound like that would make it bleed and make gluing impossible. I think that’s why he was so unsanitary.

Frank got his shot of pain stuff and then got his stitches.

I’m still mortified at the doctor’s actions and I am reporting him to the board of that hospital. I’m also going to complain that it took them 40 minutes to triage a boy with a bleeding head wound, who was covered in blood and getting blood on the E.R. furniture. (In addition to the dripping blood that he was trying to contain himself, he left a dusty pile of dried blood crumbs everywhere he sat. I am not kidding! The hospital obviously did not care.

While we were walking out of the hospital, I heard a woman asking a nurse for help because someone else had an “oozing” staph infection and couldn’t walk (thank GOD I made the doctor clean Frank better!). As we walked past one car by the E.R. door, a man was leaning out of the passenger door and vomiting on the cement. It was a horrible experience and we will never go to that Conroe, Texas hospital again, unless it’s a dire emergency.

Let’s just hope our E.R. trips are over for the time being!

We are back home now. This was the first time we’ve flown in years. We usually take our RV wherever we want to go. While we did have some good times, I would have to say, because of Jet Blue and because of Max’s illness and Frank’s injury, it was the worst vacation ever! We’re glad it’s over. We are taking an RV trip next month. No more Jet Blue for us! We learned our lesson. Don’t fly! Drive!! Oh, yeah. I have to remember to write a complaint letter to Jet Blue to try to recover the $700 they cost us in additional fees after they canceled one of our flights. (Sigh…)

This week’s Maxism: When we’re at home, Max always sits down to potty. He’s done it ever since he was potty trained and we never talk about it. It’s just something Max does. He does stand when we’re in public restrooms.

Anyway, the other night, he said, “Do you know why I sit down when I potty, Mommy?”

I replied, “No, why?”

He answered, “Because you do.”

Hugs to all!

Ang

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