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In our house mom is the one to go to for the boo boos requiring a band aide and a kiss. For the really catastrophic events, my husband is the one we all seek. So when, "Daaaaaaaddddyyyy," pierced the quiet of a rainy summer afternoon, I new it was something awful. My three-year-old son flew around the corner clutching his hands close to his chest. As soon as I pulled the left one toward me I felt the lights beginning to fade. There was a momentary battle between passing out and maternal care, but I managed to grab a towel and hurl the screaming toddler into the car. Driving through pouring rain I prayed my pediatrician would be the one in the office. I really, really didn't like his cold-hearted partner and today wasn't the day for an emergency with a jerk.
Well sometimes prayers are answered and sometimes it takes a little longer. The partner was the only doctor available. He took one look at the wound and began yelling at me for being a neglectful mother. "Why do you have such sharp scissors in your house? How could you leave them where he could get them?" He didn't know that the scissors were stored on the fifth shelf over my desk. He didn't know that my son had climbed onto my desk and up two shelves and used the scissors in the space of time it took me to put away one load of folded clothes. "Look at this! Look at this, mom!" he screamed. "Look at what your son has done to himself!" I couldn't look. I just couldn't.
Well he packed us up and sent us across town to a plastic surgeon who had agreed to wait. Prayers are answered, by the way. The plastic surgeon took one look at me and said, "It's going to be just fine, mom. Boys will be boys and this will heal." He examined the injury and asked if I had brought the missing section of finger with me. That was when I realized my little boy had cut the top of his finger completely off. I hadn't brought it, of course, but the doctor said my son was young enough that the finger would grow back on its own. He prescribed keeping a clean dressing on the wound and letting nature take its course. The finger did grow back and all that remains as a reminder of this incident is one small scar.
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