a stitch in time

May 18, 2009 – a day that will go down in the annals of the Luff family history as – mostly bad, but with a shining moment of God’s grace.

Minding her own business, walking along the clean and tidy floor, little Emma tripped on her own tiny toes and BAM! was accosted by the hinge of the storage room door in the living room. At the loud THUNKing sound that Emma’s skull made upon impact, I turned from my place 7 feet away and ran the entire distance to her side to pick her up into my arms, with desperate cries of, “oh my goodness, oh my goodness!” Emma’s initial screaming cry was drawn out into a long moment of silence before she was able to catch her breath. Terrified and certain of what I would find when I looked at the damage left by the offending hinge, I placed Emma on the kitchen counter and inspected the wound. Blood poured down Emma’s face and I knew immediately that there was an extremely high likelihood that the deep gash would require stitches. Predictably, I panicked, placing folded paper toweling on the cut and applying pressure with the desire to dam the flow of blood. Unable to think clearly, I tried to remember which Urgent Care office was part of our insurance plan. I shouted to big sister Jordenn to call Dad and get some guidance. “Meet me at the Gresham Urgent Care,” were his instructions. Relieved to know what my next step was, I shouted instructions to Brooke and Jordenn, and we all hurried to the vehicle and took off down the road. By the time all were settled in the car, Emma had calmed down and was gleeful at the delightful turn of events… we were going “bye-bye”. At this point, the bleeding had slowed to a manageable crawl and after picking up Braden at his baseball game, we made the trip to the Urgent Care office in relative peace. Daddy was waiting for us, paperwork already filled out and co-pay already rendered. We were whisked back to a room with a curtain for a door and a paper sheet on the bed. And then…. we waited. After we waited, we waited some more. Then, more waiting. At long last, Dr. Charles Wong entered the room and proceeded to tell us that for some reason that he does not understand, when the weather is nice, people get hurt. It did not seem to be relevant to the good doctor that Emma’s injury occurred indoors. Nevertheless, he felt the need to mention this odd phenomenon on more than one occasion. I was far too grateful that my baby girl was being fixed, however, to be bothered by the repetitive lesson on the effects of weather on injuries sustained by people indoors or out. Emma, however, would have preferred to just listen to the doctor talk than have him come near her head to clean, desensitize, and stitch it. She stayed mostly calm in the procedure room as long as no one was messing with her, but as soon as it was time to take care of the laceration, she became panic-stricken and could not be calmed down. The doctor instructed us to lie her down on the bed and hold her still so that he could begin numbing the injury site and he then proceeded to poke her with a needle at least 20 times. Emma did not like this. Who can blame her? Finally, when she was sufficiently anesthetized, he placed a paper sheet over her head with a small hole in it that he placed over the cut. Emma did not like this, either. What was the point of that sheet? I’m sure someone knows, but I am not one of them. I held it up off of Emma’s face so she could see me as I leaned over her, holding her head between my two hands to hold it still, murmuring words of love and comfort to her as her father held her two arms down to prevent her from squirming and pushing the sheet off of her head. Emma truly did not like this. In almost laugh-out-loud absurdity, the doctor had suggested that it was possible that Emma fall asleep during the procedure when she realized that the injury no longer hurt. I guess he doesn’t know Emma. There was no calming her down, until, by some miraculous gift from God, a lovely young nurse came into the room and offered her assistance to the doctor. She simply leaned down to gaze into Emma’s eyes, and Emma stopped crying immediately. She looked at the nurse’s face for the remainder of the procedure and did not so much as whimper again. What a blessing! Isn’t God kind? He took compassion on one of His littlest darlings and sent her an angel to calm her. Oh, the deep, deep love of Jesus!! Procedure complete, stitches in place (all five of them), we were sent on our way and Emma never again complained about her injury, even in the days to follow. I even caught the stitches a couple of times with the comb while I was styling her hair and she didn’t even flinch. What a trooper!

And as an after note, we had the stitches removed on May 28. The very same angel-nurse that calmed Emma down during the stitching procedure was the one who removed the stitches. Once again, Emma sat calmly and still for her and didn’t even so much as whine once! God is good!!