Paging Dr. Kovac....

This past week, my son was doing what he called, “Crazy Jumps” off the side of the pool deck. Including a spinning corkscrew move where he spun his body as he leapt into the water. About the 7 or 8th jump, he miscalculated and I heard and audible “Pop!” as his chin hit the concrete pool deck. I was convinced he’d knocked his teeth out, but after hauling him out of the water, he appeared to be intact. Upset, but with all of his teeth intact. Then I looked under his chin and found the 1 inch wide gaping gash that surprisingly wasn’t bleeding that much. I called out for Jill to get her shoes on and off we went to Urgent Care.

As an aside, before I say the words, “Urgent Care” in the future, I will precede them with the symptoms and severity of the injury. Telling a mom, “Lets go to Urgent Care,” really doesn’t give her enough info and so they fill in the blanks with images of split skulls, missing limbs, and disembowelment. Lesson learned....and sorry babe!

Now, the 4 of you that read this blog regularly might remember our earlier visit to the Urgent Care where we were treated by Luka Kovac’s poor cousin.

http://thatsgreatwhattaboutit.blogspot.com/2008/04/ugent-care-some-times-dog-bites-you.html

Well, as luck would have it, he was there again. He was dressed a little less like Balki from Perfect Strangers, but still the same guy.

At first he was very nice and sympathetic and told my son how brave he was. I thought, maybe I got this guy all wrong. We get Jonathan on the little bed and he’s nervous but ready to go. Then Dr. Bartokomas comes in with the syringe. Now I know this is an essential step, obviously you have to numb the area before stitching up a kid. But do you have to come in and wave it in the kids face. My son went from nervous to spastic. I mean, come on Doc! Let’s work together here! I’ll distract him and you come up under the chin where he can’t see. I’m not sure how they do it in Armenia, but here in America, we baby our kids a bit!

So now I’m coaching my kid through this like he’s giving birth. Which, by the way, is about how he’s acting. And judging by the squirming and crying, I’d guess he was going Natural.

“OK Honey, just breath, you’re almost there!”

My wife didn’t buy that shit during either one of her deliveries and Jonathan didn’t buy it either. Although he didn’t threaten to kill me, so I guess that’s a step in the right direction.

It took 10 minutes to get 2 stitches in, and because Jonathan was writhing in sheer terror the whole time, they were all jagged. His chin looks like a Halloween Frankenstein costume. My wife is pretty against going there again, and I am sure Dr. Kovac wouldn’t miss us. But the idea of waiting in an Emergency Room isn’t real appealing. I should probably come up with a alternate place though, since my son (thanks to my immediate family) has like 6 super hero costumes that he leaps through the house in and its only a matter of time until we go back with our first broken bone, second stitches or ruptured spleen.