Another injury for Brenna....sigh.

*I'll warn you first, I am posting pictures here of what happened. Its not *that* horrific, but the pictures will be at the end of this post so you can read and see pictures later if you like or skip the pictures*

I guess we couldn't make it through the Christmas season without *something* happening. Let's see... we'll start with first, the broken arm at 19 months old, then at 2 1/2, we had the incident where she fell and bit through her lip (no pictures there..too gruesome), then last Spring (at almost 3 yrs old) she broke her leg and these are only the "major" injuries.

Now this.

Ok. So, on Wednesday this past week, we (Brenna and I) were going to get Brooke from school. Some days we drive through and pick up and some days we walk inside. This particular day, we chose to walk inside so Brenna could chat with her friend. Except we didn't make it. Somehow...and I'm not even sure how, it happened so fast....we both fell as I was holding her hand, crossing the driveway. We tripped over the curb. I'm not sure if she fell and brought me down or I fell and brought her down. Either way... we fell. I hit my knees and hurt them kinda bad, but she hit her head...HARD. Loudest sound I've heard ever I swear. So I immediately jump her up, she's crying and I'm checking her over. The head, ok. The mouth, ok. The teeth, all there. I ask her repeatedly, "Brenna, what hurts? What hurts?" She finally says, through tears..."My fingerrrrr!" So a tad confused, I grab her hand (the one I was holding) and gasp.

Her poor little tiny finger. The ring finger on her left hand. It was 2 shades of red, purple, and blue. But worst of all...it had the fingernail completely ripped off and standing on its side. Not a piece of it. The whole entire nail. And. It gets worse. The underneath was raw. But, the entire nail bed had shifted or had been pushed up to her near her first knuckle.

I take a deep breath. People are running over to help. I still have 10 minutes before the bell rings to get Brooke. So I pick up Brenna, we casually walk inside and go straight to the nurse's office. Fortunately I have a rapport with the nurse already, so we walked straight in and she took a look. By this time, Brenna had stopped crying, completely. (this kid is amazing!) So I pulled up her shirt, pulled up her pants, moved her sleeves, made her move all her vital body parts to check her over more thoroughly. Everything appeared ok. She had a knot (with a bruise) on one knee, another bad bruise on the other knee, and a bruise on her head. Based on our past experiences with her, however, I was still a little worried about her injuries that she wasn't telling us about. But for the time being, she let the nurse rinse her finger off to stop the bleeding and then put a very loose band aid on to contain it till we got to Urgent Care.

About that time Brooke was coming out so we loaded up in the car and headed on over to Urgent Care. That's where they did the same as I did, checking her over and such. No Xrays or anything... but said everything else appeared to be ok. The doctor said the fingernail had been pulled (or pushed?) out by the root and it needed to come off. So he was going to deaden her hand and surgically remove it. Yikes.

A few minutes later he came in with a needle, he had her sit on my lap on a chair in front of the exam table and rest her hand on top of the table. I grabbed my phone to try to divert her attention with a memory card game. Yea...no dice really. The first two shots went in on the top of her finger under the nail and she started crying and trying to see. She didn't ever pull away though. Then he said he wanted her to turn her hand over so he could do the bottom side. So she voluntarily and ever so casually just turned her hand over and he gave her two more shots on the palm side of the finger.

Sigh.

Tough girl. I can't begin to explain how brave she was. Anyway, from there he left the room, came back in in 5-10 minutes after her hand had got real big and fat (and numb?) and started poking around. A few times she still winced so I think she could still feel it a bit. But he just went with it anyway. With his special tools, he pulled the entire nail and nail bed off.

Yea. Hurts to think about right? Awful to watch. Out of all her injuries this was by far the most disturbing to watch. :( She cried a little. But as soon as he was done, they put some antiseptic cream on and a band aid to cover and she was 'fine'. Insane. Insane that she withstood that. And since, I've had grown adults tell me they've had the same thing happen and the pain was so excruciating they had to have pain pills afterwards...the pain just hit every nerve going all the way up to their arm. :o And our sweet Brenna was barely phased. yikes.

So he said the bed would be raw for a few days and to keep it covered until it turned pink. When it turned pink, that was the new skin coming over and it would be fine. Then it would stay like that for 6 months or so, until the new nail would start to grow in. So yes, the nail does grow back. It just takes a loooong while.

Since being home, she has been mostly fine. Until day 2 when we wrapped it up a little more for school and then tried to take that off later. That was a little torturous for her. Then she thought she didn't want any bandage on after. All for about 2 minutes until the tiniest little thing touched the raw open wound. So ever since, we've kept a looser fitting bandaid on just to protect it.

My champ. What a girl. So brave, so strong, and so amazing. We didn't make it to Christmas without injury this year, but she handled it soo well. Better than *I* would have, that's for sure.

So, here come some pictures. Again, not really too horrific. I promise it sounds a lot worse than it probably looks in the pictures. There were no pictures until we got to the dr's office anyway, after it was 'cleaned up' by the nurse at Brooke's school. When she put the bandaid on on our way to Urgent Care, it actually pushed the nail back down some, so I promise it doesn't look near as bad as it did and there are no pictures of the...um...'procedure'. But, you've been warned otherwise. ;)

So, first this is when we first got to the doctor. I only took the picture b/c Brad was still at work and wanted to see what was going on. So this is a cell phone picture that I sent to him. Again, the band aid the nurse put on pushed the actual nail back down, but you can kinda see how the bed is pushed all the way back up. And where you see the 'cut' of the nail...that's the whole piece that was lifted off originally...

Then, here's her bandaged finger coming home from Urgent Care, after the nail and nail bed and root were removed...

And after we took off that one, cleaned it again (ever so gently!) and took a picture of the now healing process....

New bandage, with a mummy drawn on, because she said it looked like a mummy. This bigger one was only what she went to school with b/c the little band aids kept coming off.

So, that's the one we took off that was painful, and then we have been reapplying the small band aids since being home for the weekend. And there are times when she is still bothered by it and will cry. But for the most part, and beyond my belief, she is handling it...fine. What a girl. :)