Our fishing adventure

So we had a minor traumatic event in our family this weekend. This blog has become a document of my children's lives, so I feel like I should tell the story here. It has taken me a couple days to get to the point that I was ready to write about it. This weekend's events have made me ever so grateful for the fairly quiet, healthy and injury free lives that we are leading in our little family.

We were spending the afternoon and evening at the lake on Sunday. The weather was perfect and the air was still- just right for going fishing. Tom, Scott (a family friend), Lily and Drew eventually ended up on the boat out on the lake to see if they would get lucky and catch a big one. They did, too. Tom caught, from what I'm told, a very large fish. (Drew's learned quickly to spread his arms wide to show that the fish was Huge). Tom brought the fish out of the water to show the kids and let them touch it and then they tossed it back. What happened next was purely and totally a complete accident. An accident that will go down in history as one of the top stories that we will be telling for the rest of our lives. Lily stepped back after they threw the fish back and Drew sat down beside Tom. Then Tom went to cast his pole back out into the lake, he caught something and it wasn't a fish. Apparently Scott saw it happen. He said that Drew stood up just as Tom cast the pole and hooked Drew in the forehead and his eyebrow. It was in there deep and it was a big lure.

As this was all happening, my mom, Ann, Julianna and I were on the beach chatting and playing in the sand. We heard a blood curdling scream from across the lake. We sort of joked and tried to identify just what kind of scream that was. Was it the "I'm angry" cry, or the "I'm scared" cry or the "I'm hurt" cry. I was guessing that Drew was screaming because he was angry about something and I wish that I had been right. I knew it wasn't good when we heard the boat start up...and I knew it was worse when they came flying back to the dock. I was headed in the direction of the boat and then I saw Scott wave me to come faster...so I started running. I heard Lily scream, "Drew got HOOKED!!" And I'm thinking in my mind, "well get the damn hook out of the poor kid!" And I say aloud to Tom as I meet he and Drew at the end of the dock, "Did you get the hook out?!" (All annoyed like, I might add). That's when Tom turned so that I could see Drew's face. The poor baby had a giant lure hanging out of his head just above his eye. I lost it for a moment. It looked terrible. Like really, really bad. I shrieked. I gasped. And then I said some terms that I'd rather not repeat right now. Needless to say, I grabbed him and ran him to the car. Tom jumped in the driver's seat and we booked it to the Emergency Room.

When we arrived at the ER I took him in and didn't say a word. I just turned so admissions could see the lure. She gasped, and said, "Last Name!?" They got us directly back into a room and we waited. And waited. And then waited some more. When we finally saw the doctor we'd had a steady stream of onlookers in and out of the room. Drew was the big story of the night..."did you see the kid with the giant lure in his head?!" Even the security guy was in and out of our room. Anyway, the doctor finally came in and was contemplating what to do. He ended up deciding to call the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor in to remove the hooks surgically. He said with the hook so close to his eye and the fact that he was so young, he thought it better to have an ENT doctor do the removal. I appreciate that the doctor referred the case to someone with experience doing facial surgeries and for making the safer call.

Surgery meant that Drew would have to be put under for the procedure. By the time we had gotten to this point he had been such a trooper. He'd been calm, cool and collected. At one point Tom's pretty sure he was almost asleep in my lap. He was just as calm when they told him that they'd be giving him a special medicine to help him sleep while they got the hooks out. He was awesome. They wouldn't let me go back with him while he fell asleep, so I had to hand him to the anesthesiologist at the operating room door. That was nearly physically painful for me. He didn't cry, but he did have a look on his face that I will never forget. He was brave though. They said that he was the best little patient that they'd ever had. He didn't scream or cry, he just followed their directions. The surgery lasted less than thirty minutes and we were able to go to him as soon as he woke up. He was just fine and ready for a plate of macaroni and cheese. The doctor showed us that he had 4 puncture wounds and a small lesian where they think a hook was ripped out (sorry for the graphic details). He had just two stiches.

After all of this all I keep thinking about is how grateful I am for our little family. I am so blessed to have healthy children. I cannot imagine the stress on a person to have a child that is seriously or terminally ill. I cannot imagine seeing my child suffer over a period of time, over and over. It just has to be terrible in every sense of the word. We are home and fine now, in fact he is almost totally healed! He has mentioned the lure several times asking if he can go fishing with it next time we go to the lake. He's also said to me that he's "still sad about the lure". I don't know what he means by that, but I'm trying to be available to talk about it any time he wants.

I do have before and after pictures. I'm only going to show the after picture on here. If you're interested in the before surgery picture then you'll have to email me. I don't want to scare anyone!! Thanks so much for reading if you made it all the way to the end!