Sophie's Accident

On Tuesday evening around 5:00 PM, I finally had a chance to get in the shower. Chloe was at her desk doing homework, and I had asked Sophie to play with Charlotte (ironically, I was hoping to keep Charlotte out of trouble). I had only enough time to get my hair washed and put the conditioner in before Sophie came screaming into the bathroom telling me her ear was bleeding. Now, Sophie hates to bleed. I mean, I realize no normal person likes to bleed, but she tends to be overly dramatic when she sees her own blood. So, I assumed that she had somehow cut her ear, and it would be no big deal. I reached out of the shower to check it out. When I did that, I realized her ear had been basically cut in half... like two pieces of ear. Eeeewwww! At that point, I had a bit of a freak out. I tried to quickly pull myself together, so Sophie would be able to stay (relatively) calm. I told her to hold a wash cloth over her ear and called Jason at work to have him leave immediately. I called Chloe in and questioned her about what happened. She said that Sophie had taken a pencil away from her while she was doing homework. She was annoyed and angry, so she shoved Sophie. That caused Sophie to fall (ear-first apparently) into the footboard of the bed. The force of the shove/fall against the sharp angle cause Sophie's ear to split. I was finished getting ready before Jason got home, so a neighbor came to stay with Chloe and Charlotte while I took Sophie to the ER. About half-way to the hospital the initial adrenaline must have worn off because I felt a bit faint and queasy and wondered why I had not asked someone to drive both of us! My sister-in-law, Christy, met me at the ER and stayed with me until the doctor could look at Sophie's ear. Once we learned that she was going to be put to sleep and stitched up, Christy headed back to her house to watch the other girls so that Jason could come be with us at the hospital. She was such a trooper while the nurse put the IV in... didn't even move a muscle. They quickly sedated her, numbed the area, and set to work stitching her poor little ear back together. It went very quickly and smoothly, praise the Lord! We made it home around 9:00 PM. I kept her in bed with me, so I could keep an eye on her all night. Jay took one for the team and slept on the couch. What a good daddy!

Here are some picture we took of Sophie (I could not bring myself to take a photo of her ear before the stitches):

Jason took this picture on his iPhone after they had put her under. I kept holding her hand even though she was asleep.

This was Wednesday night after a traumatic bath (we had to remove a lot of other things that had been stuck on her skin at the hospital). I still needed to remove the bandage, apply Bacitracin ointment, and re-bandage. She was NOT looking forward to that!

This is her poor little ear!

Here's another angle. It was split completely apart along the bloody line you see.

This was after I had re-bandaged the wound. I know it looks crazy, but it prevents me from sticking the medical tape to her skin and pulling it off daily to clean and treat it. And she was even half-smiling!