Ambrose is a thumb sucker...still. While we've tried to "help" him cut down on the habit, I'd say that he is still categorized as an addict. Most of the time I'd say it's out of boredom (car rides, while watching tv, when reading a book...), and when we ask him, he takes it out immediately. However, he clearly is sucking it often enough to have two huge callouses on each (because he doesn't play favorites, God gave him two and he uses them both!) thumb. Somehow, the left thumb either got a cut or he rubbed it on his teeth or who knows what, because something pretty gnarly got in there and grew.
The first time I noticed anything was Thursday afternoon around 3, I saw it, thought it was chapped or irritated and made a mental note to keep an eye on it. Well, by the time John came home, the thumb had swollen twice as bad and there was a giant green puss filled bubble ( eewww, gross, I know!) on the knuckle and the entire thumb was quickly going from pink to a more purple color ( probably because of the swelling, it was significant). It was slightly warm to the touch and Ambrose had a slight fever. John sees it, and immediately says he needs to be seen, like now. I look up from dinner quite surprised. You'd think that my worrying genes would kick in on things like this, but really, I only worry about completely trivial, improbable things ( sharks in a pool, soup burning my in utero baby...)never anything practical.
So after John mentions he needs to be seen ASAP, I call the on call doctor line. They call me back, I explain the symptoms, and the doctor confirms how John is feeling and says we need to head to the ER. Infections like these can spread incredibly quick into surrounding tissue and into the bone, don't mess around with it, get it taken care of. So, at 7:40, we pack up and head to the ER, where as you can guess, we waited. And waited and waited and waited.
During our 3.5 hour I couldn't believe the amount of people in there. I wanted to go up, ask each person what they were here for and how long they'd been waiting, because they didn't look that sick to me. Which, right about that time, my wild banshee of a child came running around the corner in his choo choo jammies and asked me for some chocolate (that was another thing, my boy did not show a single sign that this giant abscess on his thumb was bothering him?! ), so I decided to keep my mouth shut, since my kid certainly didn't look all that sick either.
While we sat there filling out paper work, Ambrose is acting completely normal, and I start to second guess whether we really need to be there or not. I wish I had taken pics, because really, he looked right as rain. While I sat filling out paper work, John received a text from his friend and flight doctor. Earlier in the evening we had texted him a pic asking what he thought, but we hadn't heard from him...until now. He confirmed that we needed to stay and basically agreed with what the original on call doc said, we needed to get it taken care of. I believe the words, IV antibiotics and admitted were thrown around in the conversation.
Anyway, after 3.5 hours in the waiting room we head back and wait another half an hour before someone sees us. They take a look at Ambrose's thumb, inform us that it's infected, they'll need to drain it and then put him on antibiotics. Sounds fairly quick but not so painless. We wait for another 20ish minutes where they send in a resident doctor to do the procedure. Let me tell you, I used to have that "everyone has to start somewhere" attitude, but there is nothing like seeing a young unsure new doctor getting ready to cut into my little boys hand to make me feel otherwise. Really, it was a simple thing, but if I'd had my choice, I would be asking for a brain surgeons hands to cut open this puss bubble.
I didn't get my way, and the resident continued to set up. He explains to us someone is going to have to hold him really tight. Check, John's your guy. So he attempts and Ambrose puts up a fight, full of back arching, leg kicking and arm grabbing. So, we all stop, and they inform us they may have to put him in a straight jacket type thing, strap him down and do the procedure. Um, no. I ask them to let us try again, and they agree and go and grab another nurse to help out. John again holds his body, the nurse is holding his hurt hand (so tightly that it's turning shades of purple and John was convinced Ambrose would wake up with a few bruises) and I am just trying to keep Ambrose's feet from knocking over the medical tray and his hand tied down well enough that he's not batting the needle/razor away from the doctor. They numb up the thumb with lidocaine in a big, giant needle and then cut open the nasty bubble and squeeze/drain it. I couldn't believe how much puss there was! My dad told me that his body must have been doing a good job trying to fight the infection, which made me feel a little better in some way :)
The entire thing takes maybe 4-5 minutes but golly if it didn't seem like forever. We wait some more for his first round of antibiotics and wait again for them to bring the paper prescription.
We finally walk through the doors of our house at 12:30 exhausted and even a pinch traumatized but incredibly grateful that he's on an oral antibiotic and we caught the infection early.
Operation wean the thumb is in full force right now. We'll see how it goes. Daytime so far has been very successful, but how much can you do in the middle of the night and at nap time? Wish us luck!
