Chair 1, Julia 0

A split second is all it takes for a child to fall and hit the back their head on a solid object. David did it when he was 1½, and now it was Julia's turn. The only difference is while David hit a flat wall (and was okay within a minute of his fall,) Julia's head landed on the corner of a chair, puncturing her head and producing a deep gash. There wasn't too much blood as far as head injuries can go, but it looked deep enough to have it looked at.

I drove Julia to the emergency room at Holy Name Hospital. After getting checked in and having the nurse check Julia out, we got to see the on-call doctor. He felt that although the wound wasn't long, it was a bit deep. He recommended giving her a staple (rather than stitches) to keep the wound closed and to minimize the risk of infection.

After giving her a topical anesthetic (and keeping it in place with a bandage),

...a single staple was put into her head.

Note: Second staple was used to show relative size.

Anyway, the doctor said that the anesthetic would reduce the pain to a small pinch, but her crying told another story.

Incidently:

• The time between her fall and entering the emergency room was about ten minutes.
• It took fifteen minutes combined to see the nurse, get the local anesthetic, put in the staple, review the treatment paperwork and pay the co-pay.
• The other 3½ hours were simply waiting to be treated. (When we walked in, there were only two kids in the emergency room in front of us.)

Well, we're at least lucky that it wasn't truly serious this time, and Julia seemed to be in good spirits the rest of the day -- regardless of her ordeal. Still, it's really scary how a split second can be the difference between our kids happily playing and us needing to take them to the hospital.