New Years Eve... Not so great

Kids were super excited to spend New years up at the cabin since we haven't been able to enjoy it for a couple of years while we lived out of state. It is great being up there in the winter because there is a super fun sledding hill in the back of the cabin and great snowmobiling. It is also very beautiful and relaxing.

On New Years Eve morning we decided we were going to go snowmobiling as a Family. We didn't get to far and had issues with one of the snowmobiles so turned back. The kids then decided they wanted to sled so they joined their cousins sledding down the hill. The kids started getting tired walking up the big hill so the guys grabbed the snowmobiles to pick them up and bring them back to the top. Since one of the snowmobiles wasn't working, we decided to use a four wheeler. We do this all the time since the hill is so long. Matt pulled the 4 wheeler of to the side once he got up from the bottom of the hill, at that moment Addie started heading down but somehow managed to get off trail and headed right for the back of the four wheeler. I heard her screaming as I was standing near the bottom of the hill. Matt then grabbed her and I heard him say, "We got to go NOW"! I knew then it wasn't good. I started running up the hill and saw Addie's face covered with blood. I then saw the gash on her forehead. It was long and opened to where you could see her skull.

This wasn't the first incident Addie has been in. In-fact she had been to the Emergency Room twice before this. Once for a concussion and skull fracture and another time when she got hit above the eye with a golf club. Both these times were scary and with the Golf club incident, there was a good amount of blood and lots of stitches, but this was far worse. Both previous times were hard for me to keep my composure. I didn't want to scare Addie but I wasn't sure I could hold pressure on her head without losing it. Luckily my sister in law was a nurse and could handle this stuff much better than me. I begged her to come with us as we drove down to the hospital from the cabin. She did so and it really helped me to be able to stay calmer around Addie.

Matt drove, I sat in the passenger seat and my sister in law held pressure on Addies head in the back seat. Luckily I had some left over tissue paper from a gift, in the back of the car, because my sister in law ran out of paper towels.

The bleeding slowed down a ton by the time we arrived to the small hospital. That was comforting. However because of the location and severity of the cut we knew we had better get a plastic surgeon to stitch her up and I was very worried about another concussion. It was funny (not really) because we would tell every person/nurse we talked to that we knew we wanted a plastic surgeon. They would at first tell us that it really might be fine without one, but as soon as they saw it all would agree with us.

Once we checked her in we learned they were not able to locate a plastic surgeon and we would have to drive to Primary Children's which was about an hour drive from where we were. While the doctors checked her out, I drove my sister in law back to the cabin, grabbed Addie's favorite blanket and other necessities and headed back. When I got back they had checked Addie out and she didn't seem to have a concussion and they gave her the ok to head to Primary's so they bandaged her up and we hoped in the car to head there. Addie was awesome all the way there. She played games on dads Ipad the whole way.

Once at primary children's we had about a 40 min. wait until we could get in a room. Once we got in the room we had a similar experience where the nurses would try to tell us how good the people on the floor were at stitching and we may want to consider them, then they would look at the cut and change there mind. In fact we had at least two people (one a doctor) saying they wouldn't feel comfortable sewing this bad of a cut up. From there they went on a 3 plus hour search for a surgeon. Being New Years, the surgeon was busy and not many were available. Finally we located one and the began to prep her.

During the 4 hour waiting period, Addie was calm and doing great. however, by the time the doctor had arrived she was feeling pretty worn out and was ready to go home. When the nurse came in to put the IV in her arm she freaked. They had to use a second person to get her to hold still. She was so mad at them she started yelling all sorts of things to them. Things like, they couldn't do this because it was her bed time and she needed to go to bed "NOW" and they better stop. The best was when she looked at them and said, "You are bad doctors"! I felt so bad for her.

They finally got the medicine in her to sort of knock her out and finally she went calm again. The doctor had to do 3-4 layers of stitches. The cut (or gash) was 2 inches long. But it was finally all sewn up.

Addie started waking up from her drugged state and moving her arms all around the air. Matt and I went over to her and she continually puckered her lips to get kisses from us. She then started pointing to Matts face and counting. Sh said Matt had four eyes. Somehow I still had two, but matt had four.

After she started waking up and stopped throwing up she feel asleep and we were able to to head back to the cabin. Oh yes, she wanted to still go up to the cabin. Plus we had left Tate there during the whole fiasco.

We got back at 11:00. Matt and I were exhausted. It had been a 7 1/2 ordeal of emotions. Addie slept the whole drive back, but then woke up right when we pulled in. Of course she didn't want to miss the New Year celebration and woke up right away. Everyone was watching a movie so we joined them and counted down to midnight with them.

This will defiantly be a New Years to always remember. I was so proud of my little girl though and how tough she stayed. She was amazing. She even let us take pictures, but I wouldn't show her the graphic ones until later. She finally begged me enough after midnight and all the boys were checking them out, so I showed her and she was fin with everything. I can tell she is proud of herself too. Hopefully his will be are last visit to the Emergency room.