Alice’s Stitches
11-8-14
The morning started out like any other Saturday with the mad
rush to clean the house, get dressed, fold laundry and put it away, eat
breakfast, etc. All this is doable
until you add Alice into the mix.
Abby was trying to clean the toy room and Alice was messing it up as
fast as Abby was cleaning it. In
all of this, Alice tripped over Abby’s foot and hit her chin on a wood
box. The cut needed stitches and
the girls felt so bad for Alice that they were trying to make her feel better
about getting stitches (not that she knew what stitches were) and so they
pulled out their baby books and started to show Alice their stitches, staples,
etc. to make her feel like it was all going to be ok. Then they put a show on for her, made her a stuffed bear and
a stuffed heart and cards.
The
appt. at the Dr. office finally arrived three hours after the incident and we
dropped the girls off at a friend’s house since we didn’t want them to see this
traumatic experience of Alice getting stitches. The Dr. explained to us that they would have to wash out the
wound by squirting saline solution straight into the cut and then they would
put some numbing gel on it for 20 minutes and then suture it up. It was just a superficial type tear, so
a shot was not needed. The Dr.
said that kids this age just scream and we have to make sure we hold her head
still and keep her arms out of the sterile field while they sew. The nurse came in and shut the door
behind her and said, “We don’t want to scare all the other kids with her
screaming.” We held down Alice,
gave her a binky, and prepared for the worst as they washed out the cut
multiple times. No tears, just
worried looks. Then the cold
numbing medicine was placed on her chin and she was just fine. We waited the 20 minutes in the waiting
room and read multiple books. At
this point I asked Brian, “Did you say a prayer?” He said, “yes”.
I replied, “That explains why that went so well. Hopefully she does ok with the
sutures.” I had not prayed
thinking that it wouldn’t do much since Madison and Abigail’s experiences with
stitches had been so horrendous. I
was expecting the worst. When we
laid Alice on the table for stitches and gave her a binky, Alice was looking at
Brian with wide eyes and a scared look on her face. I made sure Alice could see me as I tickled her head. As the Dr. began to prepare the first
stitch, I started to sing to her.
I sang “Twinkle, Twinkle little star” and Brian joined in. There were no tears and the needle had
gone in. We continued to sing, “I
am a Child of God”, “I love to see the Temple”, “Teach me to walk in the
Light”, and “Popcorn popping on the apricot tree”. These are the song we sing to her for bedtime and she loves
them. The final stitch was done
and we picked Alice up and held her.
She didn’t make a sound and laid perfectly still. The Dr. and nurse were both so amazed
and so were we.
We picked up the girls after this and told them that Alice
didn’t even cry. That is when
Madison said, “I said a prayer for Alice.” Abby then said, “I did too.” I said, “In your heart? Or did you kneel down and pray?” Madison said, “I knelt down and said a prayer and Abby saw
me and said one too.” It was then that I realized that this was a Miracle of
three peoples prayers. What a
tender mercy from the Lord. He
gave us this experience to show that he does answer prayers, even things that
one might think are impossible. We
had a family prayer to Thank Heavenly Father when we got home and then ate ice
cream with sprinkles (Alice picked it out after the appt.). I hope to never forget this
experience when it comes to praying for what I may think is the
impossible. I feel I had the most
to learn from this.
