Just a few days before Ellie was born, we took our first trip to the ER. Eve ended up with 2 staples in her head after falling from a chair in the kitchen. Our neighbor was the triage nurse.
I'm really surprised it's taken us this long to make a return visit. This time, it was much more stressful for me, but we made it through just fine, and it doesn't seem like nearly as big of a deal now. To honor Ellie, I won't post pictures.
Just before spring break, on a Tuesday, we were walking home from the bus stop. Ellie likes to ride her bike. I was lagging behind with Eve talking about her day, when a neighbor drove by and said, "Ellie fell really bad." I ran to her, thinking I'd find some scuffed knees. She was probably only about 30 yards away, fortunately with another neighbor. I ran up to her sitting on the ground with a neighbor and a pool of blood in front of her. She had fallen off her bike and broken the fall with her face. Of course faces bleed like crazy. The neighbor that had driven by had turned around and drove us the few houses down to home. John and Eve were huge helpers and pushed Jake and Will home in the stroller. Fortunately Mom was nearby and met us at the ER. I can't say enough how amazingly God orchestrated everything we needed, and how supportive and helpful everyone was. Ellie was very upset, but the other kids were amazingly calm, and somehow I managed to keep it together pretty well. We were admitted quickly and guess who our nurse was...same neighbor as last time. Ellie was incredibly brave. Even the nurse and doctor were impressed. 3 hours later we made our way home. Ellie had 2 stitches in her lip, a tooth broken in half bottom to top (i.e. left side is remaining), a good bit of damage inside her mouth that the doc said she wouldn't mess with because it would heal better on its own, and road rash over her entire left cheek and the bridge of her nose. She looked absolutely pitiful. When we got home, all the neighbor kids that had been walking from the bus were waiting in our driveway to check on her. It was so sweet. I finally made it back to my phone to call Buck who was away at a conference in Orlando. She was reluctant, but finally let me take a picture to send to him. Poor thing, he just felt helpless.
The next day her lip swelled even more. Eve said it looked like she had two noses. She also started throwing up. 5 times. With Buck being away and me being so emotionally involved, we went ahead with a CT scan to be sure everything was OK, which it was. That night I encouraged her that Buck would be home the next day. She burst into tears, "I don't want Daddy to see me." I have to say that was the hardest part for me through the whole thing. No matter how many times I told her she was beautiful, I knew she wouldn't hear me.
BUT, kids are amazing, and God is amazing. Thursday morning Ellie asked me if she could see if she could still ride her bike. What?!?! I knew I had to let her. For the record, that's why my hair is grey! She hopped right back on with no fear. A few days later, her cheek was completely healed with new skin. A week later the stitches were out. Now we're a few weeks out. You can still see the red on her lip. We're working really hard to keep her from the sun so it hopefully won't be too bad of a scar. Otherwise, you really have to be looking to see that anything happened.
I can't even write all the little things that fell into place here and there, but I want to always remember this story as a day that God's provision in every detail was so very evident, and the love of those around us was so amazing.
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