Poor Isaiah

I'm not sure where the last half week went. Not in terribly productive anything, I'm afraid. Boo.

Today, neither Phil nor I felt great, so we decided to stay home from church. By early afternoon, the children were not playing well together, so they headed outside.

Only a few minutes later, I heard a prolonged scream, but it was such it sounded like it could be part of a game.

No. Isaiah had been riding his bike on the road, when the neighbor's dog, part pit bull, came after him, trying to bite his tires of all things. This is extremely uncharacteristic of the dog (full moon tomorrow, so maybe he was temporarily a luna-tic?). For some reason, Isaiah didn't mention this to Phil, but continued to ride. Shortly after, the dog bit his leg.

Hence, his long yell, from the neighbor's land all the way home.

His jeans were, incredibly, intact, but he had a puncture/gash behind the knee, perhaps a centimeter long, with a bit of muscle tissue poking through. I figured he'd need stitches, so we headed to the ER.

Had I known then what I know now, we shouldn't have gone. Animal wounds (even those shielded by jeans, apparently) do not get stitches, no matter the severity. Perhaps a loose suture, if the wound is bad enough, but because of the dog's filthy mouth, any serious stitching would be at risk for infection.

And so the nurse did what I could have done: hydrogen peroxide, triple antibiotic ointment, and sterile strips to hold the wound mostly together.

The antibiotic prescription could just as easily have come from our family doctor tomorrow. And if there was an urgent care center, that would have been a nice option, but living just outside a city with a teaching hospital and a second large hospital complex, I haven't been able to learn anything about urgent care facilities locally.

If there's something worse than an ER visit, it's a non-necessary ER visit. Bah!