Kipp's Thumb

The latest episode in the saga of our family is Kipp's thumb. I came home late, around 9;30, and Kipp came down to say hi and put his ice cream dish in the sink. It broke and he tried to catch it, cutting his right thumb pretty deep (the top outside of the thumb). He doesn't do well with pain, and realized that and so I got him a chair to sit by the sink. I went to go look up about when one should get stitches, and he was putting pressure on it. It had been a few minutes now, but he said he was starting to feel light headed. Sure enough, in a few seconds he passed out. This is his response to sharp pain, and has happened maybe 4 or 5 times in the last 20 years. He started to slip off the chair, so I ran over and kept him up, and as he came out of it he had what appears to be seizure-like symptoms. This has also happened before, but it is very disconcerting, and I never know if his heart and blood pressure are OK. It takes a couple of minutes for him to become coherent again. Next time I'm going to grab the camera! I didn't panic this time, but I couldn't get the phone until he could sit up by himself. The paramedics came (as always, with lights on and the biggest fire truck that Covington owns), and checked him out. They give him oxygen, and check vitals. They were also able to check his thumb and suggested stitches. In fact, the required them. They asked if I could take him to the hospital. I asked if we had to, because it was almost 10pm, and the kids were in bed....she said they could call an ambulance. Fine! I was just hoping they would say that it could wait until morning. We tried to call Covington's Urgent care, which we are 2 min away, but even though it was 9:51 they said they wouldn't take us. Bummer!

So we all headed down to Auburn General, thinking how long could a couple of stitches take on a Tues night? Well, let me tell you....all night. After 1 1/2 hrs, we had not been called for "triage" yet, which is the first step. It seemed like no one was going back. At 11:40pm I went and said I think we were going home. The man checked, and was surprised Kipp hadn't been triaged yet, and said Kipp was next, but that after that there were 9 people ahead of him for rooms. Didn't sound good. I told him we were going to wait and go to Urgent care in the morning, and did he see any real problem with that? He said as long as Kipp wouldn't bleed to death, it was probably fine....and I was pretty sure he wouldn't bleed to death from his thumb.

We got home about midnight, and after a quick urgent note to Cub Scouts that we wouldn't be carpooling in the morning to go to camp, we went to bed. We got up about 7:45 am, and Kipp went down to Urgent care, and I took Kyler to camp. Kyler made it in time for the opening ceremonies, and Kipp got 5 stitches and a new prescription for Vicadin (He also got a recommendation to try Swedish Urgent Care in Issaquah - top rated, open 24 hrs, and we would have been seen much faster - good to know!). He's working at home, and we'll get the stitches out after we get back from Calif. Should be good to go!