We spent all this past week in the town of Panajachel attending a work conference. We joined several other missionary couples and we all stayed at our mission house there. We ate breakfast at the house and then everyone went out for lunch and supper. Because it is so difficult to take Cruz out to eat and especially twice a day for a week he and I stayed in and made sandwiches many meals. One of those meals was this past Tuesday for lunch. Everyone had gone to a local restaurant but Cruz and I. We had two teenage missionary kids that live in Pana come to take care of Cruz while we were in the meetings. They had also gone home for lunch and were to return for the afternoon session. After eating and before he went down for his afternoon nap he and I went outside to play. He loves to play with the five gallon water jugs that we use here for our water. There were two empty ones that he had been playing with since we arrived. He had left where we were playing and walked over to pick one of those up. Somehow he slipped and fell off of the sidewalk and gashed his head on the corner of the concrete. He immediately began screaming and crying. I rushed to pick him up and blood was gushing from his head.
I ran him inside the house, grabbed my phone, and began calling David. The place where they were eating was a concrete building and he could not get phone service from inside. I only had one other missionary's cell number from the group and he did not answer my call either. When I could not get in touch with anyone I began to panic. I called David's phone repeatedly for about 15 LONG minutes before he answered. By then I was frantic. He, along with another missionary from the group who is a nurse, ran home to get us. We loaded the car and headed out to our first local clinic. There was no surgeon on duty at the time so we left to find another clinic. Guatemala City was about three hours away and we were trying to make a decision about going there or not. We tried the other clinic. They said they had a doctor on hand but we waited for a long time and he never showed. In the meantime Lily, the lady with us, got in touch with Vickie, another missionary nurse in our group, and they decided for us to drive to Quetzaltenango to see a doctor they both know there. They also both live in that city.
We loaded back up and headed out for the 1.5 hour drive to Xela (another name for that place). Vickie called and got us a 4:00 appointment with the doctor. Cruz slept most of the way and was hungry by the time we arrived. I fed him some water and yogurt melts while we waited.
The doctor called us back and after asking several questions began to try to clean the wound. David and Lily held Cruz down because I could not bear it. He was hysterical! He would not be still for anything. The doctor told us that there would be no way they could get his wound cleaned and stitched up with him moving that much. He suggested we go to the hospital and have Cruz given anesthesia. After discussing it, we decided that was our only option. We loaded up again and drove to the local private hospital there.
After meeting with the doctor he informed us that you cannot receive anesthesia if you have eaten within the last four hours. We had only given Cruz water and yogurt melts (because we had no idea he would be put to sleep). It had been almost an hour by then so we had to wait another three hours before they could work on him. That was a long three hours with a tired, hungry, restless one year old!
Finally about eight o'clock that night (seven hours after he fell) they came to get him. It only took about an hour and they brought him back- screaming and crying! He wanted nothing but his mama. Because it was so late the doctor wanted him to stay the night and be monitored. They had already put us in a room to wait so we made plans to sleep there. He soon fell asleep and rested fairly well that night.
He was up at 5:10 the next morning wild as ever. We did not get checked out until close to 10:00 and my biggest fear was that he was going to get hurt again before we left, haha. He was climbing off the bed, up the bedrail, opening the drawers, getting in the closet, etc. He was bouncing off of the walls!
Once we checked out we drove to the local McDonald's for a late breakfast and then made the 1.5 hour drive back to Pana. It had been almost 24 hours since the ordeal began. We ate lunch, took a long nap, and then showered. You know you are tired when you choose to sleep instead of take a bath.
He has done fine since. He is just as active as ever and does not seem to know he was even hurt. We have an appointment to have his stitches taken out on Monday. He was to leave his bandage on until then, but Thursday night while in his bed he decided to pull off all of the bandage and proudly showed us when we got him up Friday morning. He is a mess and always keeps us on our toes.
We are thankful it was not more serious and that he is doing so well. It was definitely a tramatic moment for me and one I am not looking forward to repeating. He is such an active little boy and I am sure this is going to be the first of many more episodes to come.
Here are a few photos from the day-
This was taken in the car while he was asleep on our way to the third clinic in Xela.
Once arriving at the hospital they had us dress him in this gown. He looked like a sweet angel boy in it.
This was our room. Cruz and I slept in that small twin bed. I was so afraid he was going to fall off that I stayed awake most all of the night to keep an eye on him. He tossed around a lot and that kept me awake as well.
We did not have anything with us for an overnight stay- no change of clothes, no jackets, no toothbrush, hairbrush, toys, etc. Lily ran to her home and got us an extra blanket, pillow, a sweater, and a few books for Cruz. David slept on this padded bench in our room that night.
Here is our sweet boy before they took him back. He is a trooper!
Looks painful!
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