A staple in the thumb!

Wednesday evening, I was wiping the table after dinner when I heard a short cry. Then it escalated and Yu who was doing something at the sofa came crying to me.

I happened to glance at the sofa and saw a stapler and some paper. Could it be...

Yes. He stapled his left thumb. I calmly pulled it out with my nails as he cried. It came straight out, and then some blood came out. I pressed on the wound with a piece of tissue and held him, letting him cry.

I pressed his thumb starting from the base to see where the pain was. He was able to stop crying and speak. But otherwise, he kept crying. So I popped a skittle into his mouth to shut him up :p

Kai and Yang weren't happy. Yang said he hurt his knee and didn't get a treat. Kai just hurt his arm and bum that afternoon and didn't get a treat. After I showered, I explained to them, with Yu in earshot and they laughed!

Anyway, the thing came out whole. I checked the staples - not rusty. But they're the coloured type, which means they're from my primary school days *.* Yes, I still have a box of staples from then! I got a few coloured ones from ML and I used markers to paint on my own plain ones.

But the staple went all the way in. That's a good 5mm? One end was near the middle of his thumb and the other is just before the edge of the nail, away from the nail bed. And his thumb is so tiny and thin! I didn't know if the staple could have hurt his bone. I was concerned as that's his writing hand. It was very hard to get info online about this so I decided to bring him to the polyclinic the next day.

Let him sleep with me since he was hurt and Sito was away

Trying to sun the duvet so we had only the duvet cover :p Ok without aircon. But it was a windy night so he pulled it up to his neck, very cute :)

Anyway... We couldn't get an early appointment so I sent him to school and fetched him at 10.30 am. It was an agonising 1.5-hour wait! We ended up being the only people in the waiting area for that cluster. 

There were only four people in front of us according to the app. At some point, the app showed the actual room number instead of the cluster. The room called for a number which never appeared. But there was no repeat call or a call for the next number. I asked the triage and finally the room called for us. 

I don't know if it's the system or the doctor. Probably the latter. This was my fifth time there this year - PAP, dentist, Yang's leg, my sinusitis and now this. Previously, I didn't need to wait long at all.

By then, I was quite convinced he was ok. Indeed, he pressed his thumb very hard when the doctor asked him where the pain was *.* She said no need to take tetanus shot as his booster was still valid. Just monitor. So I quickly sent him back to school for his lunch. He said he 饿扁了！

Now, when we were going to school that morning, he almost walked into the path of a bicycle and I scolded him for it. He cried coz I scolded him, not coz of the danger that he was unaware of. So on the way to school for the second time, I asked him why he cried so much - was it the pain or the fear? He said pain and fear. 

Next time a boy gets hurt, I will be sure to ask this question! 

Coz I had a staple in my finger before and I certainly didn't cry like this! Granted, it didn't go all in. But I was probably around this age, and I was all alone in the kitchen fiddling with Mother's stuff. The others were probably napping - I often didn't nap. I remember being shocked - didn't know what a stapler was then - and I just pulled the thing out and put the stapler back. Nothing to see, nothing to see....

No mention of his thumb ytd when we came home. No mention this morning. I think incident can be closed now *.*