What a trooper

So, our Friday night ended up a little differently than we'd planned... with Lucas' first trip to the ER :( We were outside playing a little after 7. The neighbors were over and we were chatting. The next thing we knew, Lucas was hysterical and there was blood all over his arms/hands/ground. What happened? We were right there... He spun Tony's bike tire around and then stuck his right index finger into the new disc brake. It was awful looking - I get chills/queasy just thinking about it now. It cut diagonal right through his fingernail and the whole finger tip was hanging off. We wondered all the way to this hospital if they could put it back together...

Right after it happened, we applied pressure and held it lower than his heart for a few minutes and had him sit down until we could look and see what it looked like. When I say "we", I really mean Tony. He was calm and rational... I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off grabbing a wet rag, then an insurance card, then tylenol, etc.

We discerned that an ER trip was a must. Lottie was already in bed, so we threw the baby monitor at the neighbors and told them to keep an ear out. Tony drove and I sat in back with Lucas keeping pressure on the finger. He didn't cry at all once we got in the car.

There was only one person ahead of us checking in, but the waiting room was pretty full. The lady taking our info was a moron - as in I had to tell her his name/birthday/address multiple times, and I was sure this was going to be a painful (*no pun intended) ordeal. She assured us we'd be seen right away to gauge the damage. Yeah, ok...

No lie, they called us back in 3 minutes. Did vitals and then took off the rag to see the finger. We felt much better after they said they could fix him up! They took some x-rays next which were a little blurry cause his bones are so small... But they thought he cut a tiny piece of bone at the top of the finger. From there, we went back to the "real area" where we knew stitches would be next.
The physician's assistant and nurse that came in were super friendly and nice. While they looked at the finger and gathered necessary supplies, we explained to Lucas what was going to happen. They took big blankets and swaddled his left arm/legs so that he couldn't move - like a burrito! Then, I laid my chest over his to hold him down... And was prepared to have him wriggle and scream til the end. Tony leaned over too to distract him and try to block his view a bit. He was still but cried for 30 seconds while they gave him 2 needles to numb just that finger. While they stitched, he was fine... talking, making jokes :) We couldn't believe how brave he was! Now it's wrapped up with gauze and has a metal splint on it. We call it "robot finger".
Most amazingly, we were in-n-out of the ER in an hour and 15 minutes!

He went to bed late and got up a few times overnight cause the metal splint fell off. Today, he doesn't act like it's hurting him, unless it gets hit on something. I am giving him tylenol/motrin for pain today, and he gets an antibiotic every 4 hours. In a few days we take him to an orthopedic specialist as a precautionary measure to have it looked at... and stitches out in 10-14 days.
What a trooper!!!