Yesterday was a tough day for Alex. And Roscoe too.

When we picked Alex up from school, he decided that it would be fun to pretend to be a dog as we left the building. So he was crawling on the sidewalk. He got stepped on. I am using passive voice to avoid mentioning the stepper’s identity, but it rhymes with “ommy”.

Hard heel. Concrete sidewalk. Hand rapidly pulled back in pain. Finger nail ripped off. Realization that there was lots of blood and part of the finger (the nail) hanging loose attached by a thin strip. Alex screams. I scoop him up and say we need to get to the ER. Once into the car seat Alex got quiet quickly and just held his finger up and watched it.

We went to an urgent care first because it was closer, but they sent us on to the ER because they weren’t equipped to do what needed to be done on a kid his age. We got X-Rays. Nothing broken, no damage to the nail bed. But they needed to reattach the nail to protect the nail bed until a new nail grows in. He was being really quiet and good, just clinging on to me hard, but he didn’t want anyone touching his finger.

So drugs were needed to make Alex not worry too much and allow the doctor to work on his finger. (There was local anesthetic on his hand too.) In a few minutes the drugs made him not care at all about folks touching his finger. Not one little bit. Well, he was still interested in watching what they were doing. But he didn’t care that they were doing it any more.

I am refraining from posting the pictures of the fresh wound, or the procedure the doctor did itself… email me if you are interested… I do have those pictures… but after two stitches to reattach his fingernail, Alex was all bandaged up and ready to go.

Well, except we had to stay until he sobered up a bit.

Once we left, he said he was worried that kids at school would ask him about his finger and think he was stupid. Poor guy. I hope the kids at school were kind today.

Anyway, we stopped at a drug store on the way home to get some supplies we would need like extra bandages and such. He milked the situation to get some extra things he wanted… some candy, a couple toys, a big flashlight… that kind of stuff. He was very upset when we finally started saying no to additional things he was putting in the cart. Wailed about it all the way home. Although I suspect that may not all actually have been about the stuff we said no about. His drugs to make him not care about his hand had probably finished wearing off.

Once home, he just chilled on my lap and watched some shows on the iPad until he fell asleep.

Meanwhile, the medical event that was supposed to be going on yesterday was happening… earlier in the day Roscoe had been in surgery getting a lump removed from under his tail that wasn’t supposed to be there. The plan had been to pick up Alex from school, then we were going to pick up Roscoe. The accident derailed that.

Amy stepped up and picked Roscoe up from his surgery while Brandy and I were with Alex in the ER.

Roscoe is OK too. The surgery was uneventful. They are sending out stuff for tests to determine if there is anything else to worry about. Hopefully there won’t be.

But Roscoe was not happy with his new cone: