May Long

The twins decided it would be fun to play 'Ring around the Rosie' with Sadie. Only their version is the kind involving a circling sprint. As a result, Sadie fell to the ground and landed flat on her upper lip. I was going to do an entire post on the life of a precious little girl ... but then ....
Sadie was playing a rigorous afternoon of Playdough at the kitchen table. She fell off her chair and gained (not one BUT) two goose eggs and split open her head.

We arrived at the High River Hospital a few minutes before 7pm. The admitting nurse informed us that 5 minutes before we walked in the door a lady in labor walked in. Nothing special until she told us the lady had already delivered!

As you can imagine there was a slight delay in the waiting room as the doctor fulfilled his obligations in the delivery room. We were brought to the patient room and received an application of topical freezing at 7:50pm. We were told to hold it in place for 20 minutes.

At 8:05pm an ambulance arrived with a 50 year old man in cardiac arrest, followed by a lathargic woman needing help in from her car, a man entering the hospital who was on the verge of passing out thus needing a wheelchair and finally another man who had collapsed in the parking lot.

I think I finally got a clue at about 8:25pm and removed the gauze. Thankfully Amanda (my sister) came with me for emotional support. We joked, we conceived ways to help the patients, we juggled roles in entertaining Sadie in a confined hospital room. Special thanks to Amanda for making it a more comfortable evening with company. Sometimes Sadie entertained herself. She checked under the chair.

She chatted.

She practiced her glare.

And she ate 2 lollipops. I packed 3 thinking I only needed 1 to cheer her up at the end. But something told me to grab a handful before I left the house. AND I used them....

Finally, after entertaining with every item I could pull out of my purse....she'd had enough. At 10:30pm she got her coat, my keys and said, "Walk"

Then she said, "Please." She thinks "Please" will get her anything she wants.

So we left the hospital for 15 minutes and walked the parking lot while Amanda held our room for us.

The admitting nurse said she's worked there for a year and had never seen it this busy. Of course! that's because I arrived.

We returned to the hospital room and Sadie fell asleep around 11pm.

Stars Air Ambulance arrived a few minutes before 12am to take the 50 year old gentleman away. It continued to take an hour to stabalize him before Stars could lift off.

Moments after Stars left we applied topical freezing again (approx. 12:50am). I watched the clock carefully. My eyes were getting heavy thinking I had to sit for another 20 minutes.

Sadie was woken through the course of swaddling her in a bedsheet. The nurse put her best effort into pinning Sadie to the bed. I squatted by the hospital bed so she could see me and talked her through the process. She let out a sad cry for the first stitch, then she closed her eyes and meditated through the remainder. I was pretty proud.

And the final result: 3 stitches completed at 1:30am.

And a lollipop! We arrived home promptly at 2am.
The plan was to leave on Monday morning of the May long weekend as a family visit to the Tyrrell Museum. However, our arrival home at 2am left us simply wanting to sleep in and have a quiet day at home. I suggested to Ryan that Sadie and I should have a girls day at home and he should take the boys.

The boys were all loaded in the car at 9am, and Sadie was awake and completely happy so the tired girls suddenly found ourselves on a road trip to Drumheller. Sadie was surprisingly sweet and happy the whole day.

After Tyrrell we planned lunch and a hike.

Preparing for the suspension bridge.

Logan getting a head start on our hike.

We made it to the top.

At the end of it all; a beauty sleep after a very late night and a very busy day.