Afognak to ER Express

With this series of posts..you're going to see the end of the movie, before the beginning...

First and foremost-our trip to Afognak was incredible. Wonderful. Gorgeous. It ended with a quiker return than we had hoped and a visit to the ER...more details about our day on afognak to follow.

Patrick was splitting wood with his little ax, which Stuey loved to sit and watch. Stuey and Patrick would collect wood for our little camp wood stove (see photos). The tee-pee is a nice, weather protected shelter with a little sheet metal stove which cranked out some serious heat.

Right after lunch, when Patrick was splitting wood, I heard him cry out in serious pain and I knew something was very wrong. I raced over to him and he told me he split his thumb. I won't get graphic but things were happening to his thumb that made me quite concerned. He held his thumb up high and we went to the ocean, where he washed it off. He started to feel lightheaded and so I had him sit down. After I raced to the shelter and got the emergency kit, bandadged it up and then we contemplated what we should do.

I seemed to remember that wounds needed to be stitched within 18-24 hours. We needed to verify this and see how imperative it was that we leave. Could we stay and just wait till the next day ... when we were due to depart?

Then we started calling every doctor we knew on the SAT phone ... starting with Paul Z., then Julie P., then Bob O, and then finally Laura W answered her phone. Laura gave us the info we needed and we decided to re-assess the wound, see if we could use steri-strips on it and go from there.

Re-assessing the wound was not fun--we unwrapped his finger, took one look at it and I said, "yeah-steri strips will definitely NOT work on that...". I think he and I both got light headed. Phone calls were made to Seahawk air and a plane came just a couple hours later. Thank You Willy!

In the ER, Patrick was thrilled to have his friend, John S., as his nurse. Patrick hunts Elk with John S. and John completely rocked and put Patrick at ease. The doctor (Dr.Mart...) was awesome as well. They kept Patrick laughing and talking, as Patrick has a moderate fear of anything needles/hospitals. At one point, the doc and John gained up on Patrick with needles...John gave Patrick a tetanus shot in his right arm while the doc gave him a shot of numbing medication into his thumb. (Wish I had gotten a picture of that one!!)

4 or 5 stithes later, his thumb has a good bill of health. Phew. So glad we were able to get home early and get his thumb addressed. Weather is VERY rainy now, kids went to bed early and alls well that ends well!

Zoya