You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
Taking stitches out of a 3 year old’s face.
I’d rather eat a glass sandwich than do that again. In my house, taking the stitches out of a frightened, insane 3 year old, well, that should come with combat pay.
When I last left you, my daughter was high as Russian tanker captain. The Vanderbilt medical staff had just administered a pint size potion of narcotics that made my toddler as loopy as Andy Dick on Spring Break.
It took a M*A*S*H unit of medics to put 4 stitches into the youngster’s chin. Well now the day had come to remove them.
Unfortunately the pediatrician didn’t use mind altering drugs, or have a tactical squad of nurses dressed in balloon outfits, trained to understand the frightened mind of a child.
No, there would be none of that on this day, a day that the blue haired office staff at the family practitioner will talk about for their rest of their lives.
Screams of unseen terror filled the waiting room. Wailing gasps of pain and anguish fluttered angrily through the Doctor’s office like drunken butterflies soaring into a bug zapper.
Like dogs cocking their heads to a distant train whistle, Nurses and office personnel looked nervously into the inner sanctum of the office. Their eyes strained to find the disruption. Within moments, they jumped from their chairs and scrambled into the antiseptic hallway. Their inquisitive whispers faded as the door to the examination cubicle closed.
Like screaming into a wet towel, the wails diminshed, but still were hauntingly audible behind the wooden door.
As the child continued to shriek, more office personnel left their posts. Even clerical staff with no more medical background than a pomegranate followed the sorrowful screams into the back hallways. Like a church parking lot on Monday, the reception area was suddenly devoid of humanity.
Patients stared at each other uncomfortably, not knowing what to do, or what was happening.
The office phone system, a state of the art marvel, was ringing incessantly; annoyingly, with a high pitch shrill that made human skin contract.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
No one answered. One after another, the phone lines of the IBM Mainframe Super Office Mate lit up. The little incandescent lights pulsed like irradiated pin wheels hot wired to an electric grid.
Bells chirped in a high decibel fury. Suddenly this technological labyrinth of fiber optic communication was as useful as an umbrella in an earthquake. A device capable of answering a dozen calls a second, routing voice mail, and with a few minor alterations, deciphering Russian launch codes, now was a feckless noise box without the old gossiping nurse at the helm.
Somewhere on the other end of the line, a mother with a sore throat tapped her pencil on her counter top, wondering what the hell was taking everyone so long to pick up?
All the while, the child’s muted screams continued to fill the waiting room.
Like bathtub tequila pouring over an open wound, the tiny bellows for help caused a burning sensation around the eyes. Wide eyed patients with various ailments cast question mark looks across the room. No one spoke, as the blood curdling cries echoed off the cheap acoustic ceiling.
Like a massive shadow tip toeing across the wall with a bloody knife and a maniacal gleam in its eye, a slow oozing panic began to chill the room. A patient with a scruffy face and hacker’s cough ran his sweaty fingers over the glass of the fish tank. An angry Oscar pushed his bulging eye against the smudge as it watched the waiting room of nervous patients fidget uncomfortably in their seats.
“No mommy! You promised they wouldn’t hurt me mommy!” The anxious screams poured out of the cubicle as the door opened and quickly closed again.
An elderly woman with Brillo wire hair blew her nose into a pre-moistened Kleenex. Her eyes darted for answers, but none were to be found. A child with a sprained wrist sensed his mother’s apprehension and began to crease the crisp pages of a new Dr.Seuss book.
Was this a doctor’s office or the Spanish inquisition?
Inside the cubicle, the wails of frantic terror sterilized the skin. My daughter was a howling, blood curdling monster, full of vociferous anger and leaking body fluids. Her mouth was wide open, like a flooded sink hole sucking homes from a cliff.
With each renewed breath of air, came a more horrific cry for help. Like soft, fleshy balloons on some super heated wind, her tonsils expanded from the back of her throat, thrashing forward like a porcupine erupting from its lair.
Four grown women were struggling to hold this tenacious toddler down. One nurse held the child’s legs. Another draped over the child’s torso. A third held her tiny head by the temples, pulling the three-year-old’s eyes wide apart like a Chinese farm hand.
With tears in a mother’s eyes, my wife held the child’s hands, trying to reassure her baby that all these forceful women with blue colored hair were trying to help, not hurt.
The women held the Little girl down about as well as a morning sickness mother holds down rotten clam stew.
The child was 3 feet of rippled furry. She was twisting and torking like a thick knotted rope lashed to a boat in a tempestuous sea. Rocking and jerking and fighting and tugging. She was a serpent of anger with remarkable strength.
“My god she’s powerful,” one nurse muttered exhaustedly.
“How can something so small be so determined?,” another jowly faced woman exclaimed.
“Just hold her a little longer and maybe I can get those stitches out,” The doctor growled over the cacophony of noise.
The child caught a glimmer of the metallic tweezers and recoiled in horror. The doctor zigged and the toddler’s head zagged. Suddenly, the single, unified line of flesh that had been healing so well, gushed open like a seething, bloody clam.
The inside of her chin became a pulsating hole of torn tissue and un-coagulated blood.
“Mommy, save me, mommy!” The child was on the precipice of lunacy. My wife was an emotional wreck. The nurses were tired, and the doctor was now afraid that continuing would do more harm than good.
“Let’s call it a day,” the doctor said throwing down the tweezers in a metal tray.
The gaggle of nurses let go of the girl who suddenly lashed onto her mother like a bank robber grabbing the loot.
“I’m afraid if I try to pull out those last stitches, the entire wound will open again. Let’s just try it again in a few more days,” the doctor said taking off her rubber gloves and opening the door.
“You heard her mommy, let’s go,” the child said sucking sniffles into her nose.
As the doctor headed out the door she said something very profound: “When that little girl gets older, she’s either going to control the world, or she’s going to destroy it.
“With that, the doctor left. The child wiped away the last tear and my wife pushed the phosphorescent band aid onto the tiny tike’s chin.
“Let’s go mommy,” she said grabbing her mother’s outstretched hand.
“You promised me an ice cream when we were done.”
My wife, frazzled and shell shocked trudged, zombie-like toward the waiting room. She was met by the icy glares of patients who had been put on hold and left to imagine for themselves the horror of a Stephen King novel in exam room number five.
The toddler smiled at them as she blissfully walked into the sunshine. Before the door shut, the nurse shouted, “Next!”
The scruffy faced man nervously got up and walked to the counter with trepidation.
A week later, we returned. The office personnel eyed my daughter like she was the tax collector.
“It’s going to be different this time,” I assure them with a determined smile.
This time the doctor was a man, and I was along for procedure. This time was going to be the last time.
The child was furious and scared, but no one cared. Not this time! This time, I held her down. This time my wife held her down. This time the doctor moved with the speed of a horny jack rabbit.
I held the girl’s hands so tight, I thought her wrists would break into bloody stumps. The doctor’s tweezers glistened in the over head light. The three year old saw the tool and wailed a primordial scream that tore wall paper off the wall. Blue hair Nurses began to cry, and pray to Jesus for forgiveness.
Meanwhile, my wife rubbed the child’s forehead. It was like trying to comfort a stick of dynamite whose fuse was lit.
“Keep her still just a moment, and it will be over,” the Doctor admonished me. His words slapped me in the face, and made me angrier than I already was. Because of his office staff’s inability to handle a three year old, I had to take off from work to come back to an exam room for a second time to take out a few stitches that should have come out the week before. I felt the anger surge inside me. I decided it was time to be a forceful parent. It was time to forget about child psychology and use the old fashioned technique of fear. It’s worked for thousands of years for parents all around the world, and by God it was going to work for me, right now, right here, this time around.
I grabbed my daughter’s skull like a soft baby pumpkin and put her in a vice grip that would make the World Wrestling Federation proud. The child’s eyes grew wide with terror. She didn’t say a word, but in her head she was thinking; why is my daddy crushing my head like Jack the Ripper on a rampage.?
“Girl,” I grunted. “You’re going to let the doctor take out these stitches. Not later, not in a minute. Not tomorrow, but NOW!”
She tried to shake her head, but I was a daddy vice grip. Her skin stretched a little, and her eyes rolled in her head, but for the most part she was fastened securely.
“Go doc, go!,” I hollered.
I was now in control. The doctor may have had the tweezers, but I was the dad in this room. I was the ranking officer giving the order to leave the boat, and storm the beach. The doctor became a field medic under my command. His hands were a blur, as he grabbed hold of the tiny thread that dotted the child’s face like a mini crossword puzzle. Like a duck sucking a fat worm from the earth, the doctor pulled the three inch thread through the child’s skin.
“All done!,” he stated, laying the tweezers in a metal dish.
I let go of the girl’s head. You could see my fingerprints on her cheeks, as the red began to work its way back into her skin. I felt badly for holding her down, but knew it was imperative to this operation. I gave her the thread. Her mood brightened immediately.
“That didn’t hurt at all daddy.”
I laughed. “I’m glad baby. I’m glad!”
All the adults in the room laughed a silent laugh that children will learn to appreciate when they have children of their own.
And that my friends is Crazy!