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We got in relatively fast, and sat in our room, waiting for someone to come. (And, while checking her vitals, I learned that Kiddo is four inches taller than I thought she was. We'll be needing to try on those new pants I bought her.) Here is Kiddo, chilling, waiting for someone to come fix her toe.
First they put on a numbing agent. Then about 20 minutes later the doctor came in to take the splinter out. His watch said 8:30, and I thought, hey, we'll actually get out of here by a decent hour. Kiddo saw the instruments he was working with, a needle and a pair of tweezers, except his needle was bigger than mine, and his tweezers had sharp ends, and thus began our long adventure. Kiddo was scared to pieces. She yelled, and tried to move her foot away, then curled her toe under so it couldn't be looked at. She was crying enough for them to remove her toe, not just the splinter. After a fair amount of wiggling and squealing, the doctor decided to put more numbing agent on before any more work. And he left for another 20 minutes.
The second visit went about like the first, except this time he got one part of the splinter out. As he went for the second part, the hysterical crying of Kiddo (and thrashing about), led him to offer more numbing agent, and he left again. I believe there may have been a third try, that went about the same (crying, thrashing, no progress, Kiddo accepting the offer of more numbing agent, him leaving again).
When he came back the next time he had the nurse with him, explained to her that Kiddo was scared of him (not true, she was petrified of the tweezers), and handed the task to her. I basically said to Kiddo that we're getting this out now, and pinned her down and expected the nurse to do her job. But she was just too good at curling her toe, and after some intense weeping the nurse left again (ARGH!). (To their defense, they were trying, each time, to get that little splinter piece out. But Kiddo truly acted as if, and believed, she was dying.) I was so frustrated. Clearly the numbing agent was about as effective as they told me it would be (not very, but a little, plus the psychological effect), and I just wanted it to be done. I sincerely wished they would just push through, because every time they walked away without the splinter out, that meant Kiddo had to be scared, and cry and be hurt again.
The last time (around 9:30), we put Kiddo on her belly, I put my head on her back and held down her legs with my hands, and told the nurse to just get it out. And after the same amount of wailing, thrashing and crying from Kiddo as every other time, she did. "She got it! It's all done," I assured Kiddo. She immediately calmed down a lot. "Can I have a bandaid please?" came her plaintive, sob-filled voice. The nurse told her she could have as many as she wanted, "Just one please," she replied politely. Her politeness at this moment both broke my heart and made me so proud. We stuck on a pink bandaid and she was healed. The tears dried in their place, she climbed down off the bed, and pretty much danced out the door.
The next splinter experience is not going to be pretty, that's for sure.
