Fear

Saturday afternoon, Olivia and I were hanging out at home while Dallas and Dylan were at the gym. We were enjoying a little quiet time together, talking about our upcoming trip to New Zealand and listing all of the things that we wanted to do over our Christmas holidays. I was fluffing around in the kitchen and asked Liv if she would run out to the garage and grab a bottle of Pellegrino for me.

The next thing I heard was my baby screaming.

As a parent, you learn very early to discern between an angry scream, a hurt scream, a startled scream or a delighted scream.

The sound Olivia made was none of those.

It made my stomach contract and my heart race. Her scream was pure FEAR and I felt adreanaline course through my body as I sprinted down the hallway to her. For some reason, I expected to see an intruder and I have to tell you that unless he had a gun, that guy would not have fared well because Olivia's cry brought out a primal protective intinct that I had never experienced before. My scalp was tingling.

What I met with was Liv running to me, hands cupped together, blood dripping. We ran into the kitchen where there was light and I got my first glimpse of her injury. And it was bad.

Olivia had grabbed a big 750ml green glass bottle of Pellegrino from the fridge with her left hand and as she climbed two stairs, she slipped and fell on her left side with the bottle still in her hand. It shattered and sliced open her thumb. She had severed the radial artery and with each beat of her heart, it pulsated copious amounts of blood out the wound and down her palm. For a full second, I stared, horrified. Then, I began to talk to myself out loud.

"Pressure. We need pressure." I grabbed the nearest cloth which was one of our large, white cotton flour sacks that we use to dry dishes and wrapped it tightly around her hand.

"Put your arm up over your head, Liv," I told her and I got an ice pack out of the fridge to hold on top of the cut. She resisted as the pressure of the ice pack caused her considerable pain. "I don't feel very good in my belly, Mama," she said. We had to get to ER.

As I was backing out of the driveway, it occurred to me that I had no idea where I was going. Where the hell was the hospital? Do I call 911 and ask? Do I knock on neighbour's doors? All of this ran through my head in a matter of seconds. I called Dallas instead.

Before I could get a word out, Dallas was asking me how many reps he needed to do with the step ups in his new program since I'd just finished a month of it. Apparently, he had called a few minutes earlier during the heat of the accident and he thought I was returning his call.

"Dallas, where's the nearest hospital?" He didn't immediately reply. I looked over at Olivia and the dishtowel wrapped around her hand had turned crimson with her blood. I had to repeat the question, panic rising and struggling not to shriek into the phone. The communication finally cleared between us and Dallas told me how to get to what we hoped would be the nearest facility with an emergency room.

I sped, my hands shaking. I might have been shedding a few stress tears. Olivia said, "Mama, you've got to calm down." I looked over and she was lying back in her seat, pale, quiet and eerily composed. I have never been that scared in my life. "Don't go to sleep, baby," I said. "Okay Mama," was her reply.

Fortunately, the hospital was less than five minutes away and they took her right in. Olivia handled the whole thing really well although I will tell you that the process of freezing the thumb was just freaking HORRIBLE. It will be a long time before I'm able to get the sound of my child's pain out of my head and seeing the blood from her arterty rythmically spray all over the doctor is something I'll not soon forget.

On the ride home, Olivia told me that when she first cut herself and saw the blood, she screamed, not because it hurt but because she was afraid she "might not live anymore". I have to be brutally honest. When we were in the car and there was just so much blood and she was looking at me, blinking slowly, eyelids heavy and so adultlike in her mannerisms and me not knowing where in the world to take her, I had a moment of icy terror wondering if a child could bleed to death from her thumb. Stupid, I know but hey, I'm just keeping it real.

This is the aftermath of the whole ordeal and it doesn't look so bad, right? She will have to see a hand specialist because she severed the nerve but if ten stitches and a permanently numb tip is the worst of it, I'm feeling like we were pretty fortunate.