It's Not Right

I mean really, what mom insists on taking picture of an injury before allowing their kid to bandage it up? Yesterday, Noah and his friend had turned his bike upside down and were turning the pedals as fast as they possibly could. There was a bit of mis-communication, Noah reached for the pedal, missed and the tip of his middle finger was grabbed and sucked into the chain/gear assembly. It went in and all the way around. By the time he got back home it had swelled up and was bleeding pretty good. Of course, being the sympathetic mom that I am, immediately yelled, "NOT THE COUCH!" as his held his dripping finger over the back of it for me to see. I took him over to the sink, rinsed it off and tried to get a good look at it. My biggest concern was the fingernail, it looked like the spikey part of the gear crushed the side of his nail and pushed it down into the nail bed underneath. I didn't know if when it started to heal and grow out if it would cause problems. That and the fact that Noah was having a really hard time calming down concerned me a bit. He can be a bit dramatic at times but when injured he really has a somewhat calm demeanor and can usually settle down rather quick. I started to wonder if the tip/bone had been broken. After a quick call to Joel, we decided to go ahead and bring him into the Urgent Care clinic. Thankfully, they were not that busy and we got in rather quickly. They decided to do a quick Xray and it came back break-free. The nail, for now, is going to be allowed to heal and move on it's own with the hope that his body will naturally take care of it. Keeping it wrapped, iced throughout the day to keep the swelling down and Tylenol if it starts to hurt or throb really bad are what the doctor ordered.

I decided to post the all-wrapped-up finger picture first. This will give anyone (SHANA I'm talking to you) the chance to not scroll down and see the other two pictures. I personally don't think the pictures are that bad but I am not paying for a new keyboard if you (Shana) puke.

Side view, it's all cleaned up in this shot, you can see where the chain rubbed it raw. That goes all the way around his finger.

Yuck! You can see the crushed area fairly well in this shot. We put a new bandage on it this morning and the bruising is showing quite nicely.