A Diagnosis For Monkey (Part 1)

It all started about 3 weeks ago.

Monkey and I were curled up in bed around 10pm.  Monkey was happily nursing in my lap while I alternated between cheering on Judge Judy and chatting with Sarge while he played his computer game.

Monkey has this new habit of exploring with her hands while she nurses and she's just recently taken to pinching. This particular night she was innocently pinching mommy while drinking her "milkie" when she managed to dig her teeny tiny, razor sharp nails into my skin, and it HURT!

So, right then and there I knew I needed to do something about it. It wasn't her fault her little nails were so sharp! I innocently asked Sarge to hand me the baby nail clippers off his nightstand. I'd trimmed them a couple times before with no mishaps so I didn't think this time would be any different.

clip, snip, clip, clip, clip - "YAY! Great job, Monkey! Those fingers are done... let's do your other hand now!"

And then it happened... her tiny little hand moved as those horrible mean clippers went in for the SNIP!

Sarge's face froze in horror, with a look that totally said "OUCH!!"
I dropped the clippers and mentally freaked out asking myself  "WHAT DID I JUST DO!?"
For a second, all I could do was look at Monkey and pray that it wouldn't hurt as bad I thought it did, but her face told me that it absolutely hurt more than anything she'd ever felt before and she was not ok with that!

It was so awful and it felt like we froze for hours and just stared at each other like "did that just happen?" but in reality, I'm sure it was only a matter of seconds before we were completely unfrozen and living the horror...

Monkey getting cuddles after getting her finger bandaged.
Feb 24, 2011

Her scream was piercing and unlike anything I'd ever heard come from her tiny little body before.  I instinctively scooped her up into my arms as I said "I'm sorry baby, I'm so sorry!" over and over and over, with tears rolling down my own cheeks... I yelled for a kleenex and when her tiny finger bled through that in a matter of seconds, I told my husband to grab a cloth wipe and I used that instead.

My EMT instincts told me to apply direct pressure and the bleeding would stop. I examined her finger and saw that it didn't look like it was too deep and should stop bleeding quickly, so I just quickly applied pressure and prayed for it to stop hurting so bad.

 The mommy part of me is so new that I was paralyzed at the fact that not only was my daughter hurt... it was MY fault!  I felt awful and just wanted the crying to stop because maybe it would mean the hurting had stopped as well. I got Monkey latched back on for more "milkies" and kept applying direct pressure to her sweet little finger. At least the crying stopped, but I still felt awful!

Minutes passed and it was still bleeding... How could something so small bleed so much?  After about 30 minutes I started to get really worried. I could rotate the cloth and a fresh spot would be filled with blood in seconds and it just wasn't slowing down at all!

I waited a little longer and decided that we needed some professional advice on how long this little finger should be bleeding. Sarge called the nurse advice line (thank you TriCare!) and they said it should have stopped after a max of 5-10 minutes and we needed to go to the ER as soon as possible because the cut could be deeper than we realized.

So, we bundled up our little Monkey and headed out for the ER. We got there around 11:15pm and were taken back really quickly.  The doctor came in and looked at the cut and said that luckily she wouldn't need stitches because the cut was so little, but we did need to get the bleeding to stop.  He decided to cauterize the cut and  place a bandage on her tiny finger to protect it and catch any more blood.  Once we were all done, he told us the usual "follow up with your pediatrician" speech.

I was totally relieved that it had finally stopped bleeding!  Except for a couple minutes of crying when it first happened, Monkey seemed to not really mind the whole adventure. She smiled and laughed at the nurses and doctors the whole time we were at the hospital, and as usual everyone "oooh'd and ahhhh'd" and told us how adorable she is.

When we got home and got settled back in bed for the night, my mind started going and I realized that it just wasn't normal for Monkey to have bled so much. By the time all was said and done, it was 2 hours before her little finger stopped bleeding!  I felt like I should definitely talk to her pediatrician about it and was thankful we had an appointment for her 4 month checkup in a few days.

I never in my wildest dreams, nightmares really, imagined what would come from such a simple cut on the tip of her finger.

To be continued... 

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