About 30 minutes in Quinn came to me crying (which doesn't happen often) and saying 'There's a piece of wood in my foot!'. He'd jumped off the swing onto a piece of wood, and part of it went into his foot and snapped off!
I looked and I could feel a hard lump in the ball of his foot, but it was hardly visible and nowhere near the entry point which I could see. He was also really wincing and sobbing. I considered trying to extract whatever it was but he was clearly in pain and I could see it was not going to be coming out easily.
What to do?
My friend asked if I wanted to go back to her house to try to get it out there, but I have enough medical training to know that this was not going to be easy, it was going to take some hectic digging, and there was no option to leave it in because it was deep and at an angle, it was agonising for him.
We were around the corner from Constantiaberg, so I thought I'd just pop in there and get it done. Well there was a huge queue there so after 10 minutes I left again and we went to the medi-cross instead. I am glad, there was no queue, and there was a lovely friendly doctor there.
She tried some locally applied crystal stuff which was meant to numb his foot, but that didn't work, and then she tried the spray on numbing spray, but that also wasn't strong enough. Eventually we agreed that she needed to inject a local anaesthetic. She warned it would hurt like hell to administer, but would help to numb his foot enough to be able to get the thing out afterwards.
Quinn was very brave but nearly hit the roof when she injected the sole of his foot. Shame man. The doc was lovely and sympathetic though. After that she cut about 2cm along his foot with a scalpel and got the splinter out. It was very wedged inside and quite big!
I wouldn't have been able to get it out myself, that's for sure.
It cost R545 though! Yikes!!! She told me it would have cost more at Constantiaberg, so I am glad we didn't stay there.
On the way home I said, 'Happy Birthday Quinn. I got you a piece of wood, and wrapped it in your foot' He thought that was funny.
Well, I guess it was inevitable, being a boy and all, that an ER visit was on the cards at some point. It happened today at almost 8 years old. Not bad going I think. Quinn on the bed in the 'procedure room'
Back home with his bandaged foot and 'show and tell' splinter.
OH poor boy!!! He is such a brave boy hey
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