For a while, I wasn't sure I want to write a post about this.
It’s still a sensitive subject for me. When I shared my story with other mums a few of them told me that they were so happy I dared to talk about this because something similar happened to them and they were so ashamed and never shared their experience with others. Nowadays we talk about the good stuff, we share only the nice part of life. It’s understandable that when you make a mistake or something bad happens to you, you feel alone because you’d think everybody else is perfect and they do not have any flaws. Which is not true!
You can try to be a perfect mum, pay attention all the time, be there for your kid. But shit happens. You make a mistake, you turn away for just a second and there it is, an accident, an injury, something you thought you’d definitely prevent.
It happened to me as well. We were coming out of the elevator, Pixie was in front of me, she was running towards our flat. Out of the sudden, she turned back and wanted to get back on the elevator. But the door was closing, she tried to hold the door, or just put her hand in the doorway and the just closed on her little finger. I almost managed to catch the door but didn’t reach it in time. I was just half a second late. I immediately picked her up, she was crying so loud I knew that something bad happened, I knew she wasn’t just scared, but I was hoping for a smaller injury. We got in the apartment and I tried to calm her, for the first minute I didn’t see anything being wrong with her hand then I noticed that I had blood on me… didn’t really got it where it was coming from and then I noticed her injury on her finger.
I just called my husband telling him that we are going to the ER because we had a terrible encounter with the elevator door. I just grabbed Pixie and I was running to the hospital.
We live next door so it was just a few hundred meters to get there, but it was terrible. My poor little one was in pain, she was crying and I had no idea how serious her injury was. I still hoped that they will just clean her wound and put a bandage over it, and that would be all.
They processed us quickly and let us in a private room dedicated for kids.
It helped Pixie a bit that there were nice pictures on the wall, princesses, flowers and cartoon characters. I was singing her favourite song that usually helps calm her and was telling her that daddy is coming as well. She managed to calm down but any time she tried to move her finger just to hug me or to get comfy in a different position she started crying again.
There are some volunteers in the hospital, they are called the red vests, they are bot medical personnel, they are there to help you. They were extremely nice to Pixie, they tried to calm her, get her to smile but it wasn’t easy. One lady went to search for a toy for her and brought Pixie a small donkey. That seemed to help. She learns to say the sound the donkey makes and it distracted her.
By that time my husband arrived as well, she was happy to see her daddy and show him her new toy.
The doctor arrived to check on Pixie, he had a quick look at her finger and told us that they will make an X-ray to see if anything was broken. And he explained to us that her fingernail will come off with time and she’ll need bandages until it’s completely healed. We had to wait a bit to get the X-ray done. I wasn’t allowed in since I was pregnant, my husband could go in with Pixie. It was so bad standing in front of the closed door and listen to her crying.
We waited quite a while to get the results. Unfortunately one little bone in her finger was broken which led to longer healing time. They put a bandage on her finger, and fixed her broken one with the next one so she wouldn’t be able to move it that much.
All together we spent 2 hours at the ER which seems a lot considering that she is a toddler and she just needed a few minutes from the doctor but knowing that sometimes it can take up to 10 hours to get processed I think it was quick and they were very helpful. She got one prescription for some painkillers and antibiotics. And another one to see a nurse every two days to change her bandage.
It was quite hard during the first days, but kids can adapt extremely quickly. She soon learned how to hold the spoon even with her fingers in a bandage. And luckily she only needed painkillers for a few days. The most difficult issue was her bandage. It was supposed to last for 2 days but sometimes it came off and I needed to learn how to put it on. My first try lasted only for ten minutes. Yes, mummy bad some room for improvement ☺ but I got quite good at the end.
The accident happened almost two months ago, the fracture is healed and she doesn’t have a bandage anymore but her fingernail is not jet healed. She still shows me her boo-boo and asks for kisses. She became more sensitive for all injuries. Even if it’s something small, a little fall or a bump she gets very upset and demands a lot of cuddles. She used to be much more relaxed about these things. If it was something minor sometimes she didn’t even stop. Just continued playing. I hope she will forget about her injury soon and get back to herself. She is just two years old and quite clumsy and reckless. She runs around the flat or the park and bumps into things all the time. Until now it wasn’t a big issue, but now it sort of ruins her playtime.
Kids are sensitive and it was a huge scare for her. I think we are lucky that it was just a minor injury that healed in a few weeks. She liked the nurses so it wasn’t an issue for her to get her bandage changed and I think it stopped hurting after a couple of days.
I still feel responsible for what happened to her. It was during my watch and even though I know there wasn’t much to do to avoid this I still consider it my fault. I guess we mothers are built this way. I will always feel responsible if something bad happens to Pixie. I just have to learn to live with this and accept that accidents will happen, this was just a minor one luckily but unfortunately, I’m sure there would be more serious ones as well. I will be there for her and that’s all I’ll be able to do.