you’d think he’d been involved in a fisticuff, a bar brawl, or a gangsta gang fight.
but of course it was nothing as exciting or roguish as that. though, none the less mischievous.
it was sunday morning and i was still languishing in bed with the little one, only to be fully woken up by the sound of the boy’s crying, obviously in pain. “oh no,” i thought, “sounds like trouble…” and found the daddy applying pressure on the boy’s brow with ice, blood dripping down the collar of his shirt.
yes, he’d indeed attempted a daredevil stunt, evel knievel-style, down the flight of staircase at the common corridor, with his bright, plastic tricycle.
his daddy wanted to drive to a nearby shop and didn’t allow him to bring the trike, but the insistent (read: stubborn-nak-mampos) boy always had to find his own solutions to get what he wants.
and what he got was a tumble down the stairs.
he sustained a rather deep cut over his left eyebrow. not sure what he hit, but apparently he was still on his trike at the bottom of the stairs, so his head didn’t hit the floor, which would have been worse.
from the stories i’ve heard countless times of his daddy’s own ‘adventures’ as a small kid (stitches on his chin and his head on separate occasions), i knew this was a ‘rite of passage’. we were both actually just waiting for this day to happen! (a self-fulfilling prophesy prophecy, it seems.)
i wasn’t too worried coz he was up and running again within minutes (i think his pain receptors are impaired!), but we had to head to the A&E anyway to get it checked and prevent any infection.
of course, as murphy’s law has it, we discovered that the car’s battery had died, so we had to call for our resident auto-mechanic (thanks azfar! ;p) for help, and reached KKH more than an hour later.
the wound warranted immediate entry through the Red Door (if you’re familiar with KKH’s A&E, you’d know the Red Door, hehe), and the boy pointed out his head to the attending doctor (as well as his ribs, and his shins – by then, i thought he was going through the ‘head, shoulders, knees & toes’ song).
so the options were to either apply some ‘magic gel’ thingy on the wound to numb it and sew it up, or sedate him so he wouldn’t move during the procedure. since it’s pretty close to the eye area and we doubt he’d be able to sit still for anything, sedation it is.
he was more fascinated with what was happening around him than anything, trying to talk to the doctors and nurses, recalling the Hulk movie he watched the night before where the muscular green hero also had wires strapped on his body, and the X-Men movie where Wolverine too had sharp things coming out of his hands like that needle poking out of his own.
at this point, we were laughing at his plight and his dazed mumblings, his eyes glazing yet you can tell he was fighting the sedation meds.
but a while later, when we thought the stitches were done, the two docs came out and told us they’re calling down an eye doctor coz they were concerned that some muscles or nerves might be affected. so we waited, his eye was checked, and the cut was pronounced to be too high above the eye to be worried about. so now they called for a plastics doctor to do the actual sewing (i guess they’re more specialised for such delicate work), which we had to wait for some more, and another dose of sedation was administered. the boy was so high after that, i tell ya!
a few things struck me after that.
well, mainly, guilt, for letting accidents happen to him, coz if anything, it’s always the parents who are at fault, right? they’re supposed to warn him, nevermind if they turn into boring nags. eyes are supposed to be on him AT ALL TIMES, coz at his age, they’re impulsive, lacking in judgment, and not as physically adept as they think they are.
then having to account for the incident to his grandma, who’d no doubt blame us, with her “aku jaga dia tak ada pun kena apa-apa!”, at which i’d silently reply, “if you’d let things happen to us once in a while, maybe we’d be better risk-takers and not be scared of doing anything”, but of course, those were my issues. and her “bawak dia balik sini nanti!”, making me feel like a shite parent who can barely function myself.
then the thought of having given birth to this child, in perfect condition, a clean slate, only to eventually have him scarred, physically, and – just wait till he’s older! – emotionally.
and, the final thought, that if this is the kind of thing we have to go through with children, i’d rather not have any more. it’s too painful, and my pain receptors, they’re not so impaired.
so there, another ‘battle scar’ to, erm, add character to his face. six stitches, of which story he can regale others with, a great conversation starter if anything, a legacy he can pass down to his future sons: “daddy pun dulu jatuh kena jahit! tengok ni?”
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