Poor Lena

About two weeks ago we were running a rather hectic day. Both Evan and I were operating on very little sleep after the end of the semester rush to get assignments done, Evan still hadn't handed in one of his papers, still hadn't studied for his finals, and we were running late for my pre-scheduled (and might I add, rather inconveniently scheduled by the government) biometrics appointment with USCIS in Salt Lake City. Oh yeah, and it was snowing, so we couldn't speed... not that we would anyway, right?

We managed to get a bit lost on our way to the USCIS office, which I think took about 3 years off my life span. My last experience with USCIS appointments had been in San Diego, where they were incredibly anal about everything. If you turned up even a little late you had to reschedule your appointment (not an easy thing I might add), and you risked deportation. They had armed security sitting at the door. They also had metal detectors, and searched bags as you went in the door. No one smiled, because, heaven forbid America seem warm and welcoming, and my officer was mean middle aged lady who evidently loathed her job. As it turns out I fretted needlessly about being late for my appointment in Salt Lake. It was a much smaller office, and we were the only people there. There was one security guard, but he judged us from afar and didn't even bother to check our personal possessions to make sure we weren't nefarious individuals. We were in and out of there in 10 minutes.

But I digress... We came home, with the deadline for Evan's paper rapidly approaching, and were about to go and hand it in when our bed jumped up and hit Lena in the head. Well, actually Lena wandered into our room, tripped up, and hit her head right on the corner of our bedframe. It left a deep, gaping gash, and she screamed... a lot. As soon as I tried to clean it up I knew we would have to take her in to get stitches. Fortunately our neighbours were home, and they were more than happy at the prospect of looking after Oliver for a while, so we headed off to Urgent Care.

Lena did really well throughout all of it. After about 5 minutes she stopped crying, and surprisingly there wasn't very much blood at all. Since we went to the BYU Health Center, and they just have a small facility, we had to wait around for about one and a half hours while a missionary got his hand stitched up. I will say this though: whilst I have my personal grievances with privatized health care, and even though we had to wait as long as we did, it was nice to know that we wouldn't be waiting in line for 5-8 hours to get medical attention, which almost always has been my experience with public health care.

So anyway; the stitches. Evan was chosen to be the 'bad parent', and I waited in the lobby and listened to my little girl screaming for 20 minutes. Evan said that they wrapped her up burrito style and they had him hold her still. She figured out pretty quickly that if she held herself still things would end quicker, so she screamed, but she held still: apparently most kids won't even let the doctor near them and start thrashing around once that first stitch goes in. After it all she was as happy as a clown - she got lollipops, stickers, candy, ice cream, pink milk, special attention from Mummy and Daddy... basically anything she wanted for the next couple of days.

All of this was, of course, rather traumatic for me. The only times I have had stitches was for both c-sections. None of my sisters ever had stitches. In fact, none of us really had accidents as kids, and it took until last year before one of my sister broke a bone. I really had no idea what to expect, and as a mother I didn't want to be placing my child in a situation that would cause her needless pain or trauma. Sedation - conscious or unconscious - was not an option unless we went to the main hospital, which realistically wasn't an option since our insurance would only cover half of the cost of the visit. Evan was amazing, and spent most of the time reassuring me that I was doing the right thing, and that our little girl would be fine.

Speaking of insurance, as much as I hate the BYU plan, I am glad that we have it. As long as we get care in the Student Health Center we have an urgent care co-pay of $15. When we got our bill for Lena's stitches we were shocked to see that without coverage we would have paid almost $900 for that visit alone. Had we gone to Utah Valley Hospital to get the conscious sedation it would have easily been more than that, and we would have had to pay half.

Lena was able to get her stitches out 5 days later. She was so brave! They didn't have to wrap her up or hold her down. She knew what was coming, so she just sat there and bit her lip as her eyes welled up with tears. It was heartbreaking.


So, Lena is left with a little scar on her head. Fortunately, if it doesn't fade completely over the next few years it will actually make its way up into her hairline... who knew the skin on your face grew that way!