My tough little guy, Daniel

So you are probably wondering why Daniel is wearing this ninja-like headband in all these photos…
Today started out pretty normal. It was a good day to see the Lord’s care in action!
While we were visiting after church, Jonathan & Daniel went to the pastor’s yard (the parsonage is across a small parking lot) to play with their little boy, Elijah. I was talking to someone & Jonathan comes running in, “Mom! Mom!!! Come quick!! Daniel’s hurt! He’s bleeding!” (Jonathan sounded pretty scared) So I run out there, and Jef & Daniel are standing by the car and Daniel is screaming. Jef tells me Daniel got hit in the head with an aluminum bat. So we look at the wound and it it pretty deep. Thankfully his nose & eyes did not get hit at all – just his forehead! We weren’t sure how deep it was, but it was bleeding pretty badly, as head wounds do. Daniel was just crying and crying. He said it hurt really bad. We decided to take him to the ER. I figured it would be better to be safe than sorry and they could at least give him something for the pain.
Poor Elijah felt really bad. It wasn’t like he did it on purpose – I’m sure Daniel wasn’t paying attention. He is wont to stand next to people and not realize what they are doing!! We told Pastor Greg & Michelle that we would call them and let them know what was going on.
The trip to the hospital was long. It is weird, I am sure it didn’t take any longer than usual, it just seemed like it!! When we got there, Daniel & I checked in while Jef parked the car.
The check in process was quick! The lady said, “Hi! How can I help you?” and I said, “He has this” and pulled off the washrag I was holding to his forehead. She said, “Okay!”, got his name, and sent us to a room right away. She was there in a couple minutes evaluating Daniel. She gave him Ibuprofen pretty quick. We found out he weighs about 70 pounds! 🙂 After another nurse came and got our insurance info and such, we were taken back to the Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital ER. Everyone was very nice. Dr. Blake came and looked at Daniel and decided he couldn’t just glue it (someone had said that was probably what would happen) because the wound was too deep.
Daniel was such a brave trooper. He was asked a dozen times what had happened, and he would reply (through tears), “I got whacked by a bat!” Totally cracked us up!!!
I really liked the nurse who gave him the anesthetic, because she told him the truth. She said it shouldn’t hurt (the anesthetic she was putting on), but that it might sting. It did sting, and Daniel cried. The wound was deeper than we knew. But the nurse was good, and got a lot of the stuff inside. In twenty minutes, Daniel was smiling again. 🙂 Seeing him smile was such a relief! The dr. did a great job, putting in eight stitches in all – two on the inside and six little ones on the outside. He did his best to make it so the scar will not be bad. 🙂 The resident dr. who helped told Daniel to tell people he got the scar “defending a lady’s honor”. Dr. Blake, who sewed him up, said to tell people they should see the other guy!! 🙂
God is so good to us!! He takes such care, even with the boys. We are so thankful Daniel isn’t hurt more than a few stitches. And Daniel is fine now. He told me tonight his head hurts a little inside, but it is not bad. 🙂 (I’m sure compared to the pain he felt earlier, a headache is NOTHING!) The thing that freaked him out the most was the blood (head wounds bleed a lot!). And he said he was glad he didn’t get hit hard enough that he forgot EVERYTHING. 🙂
That was our day. We came home after the hospital, had Safeway Chinese with Tina & Kamali and just hung out. Oh, and we called the pastor’s family back to let them know Daniel was ok, and to try and cheer up Elijah.
Be sure to check out all the pictures — I posted some of the boys in their new clothes and some of a neat thing called an analemma.