Nathan's Toe

This post isn't for the faint of heart!  The pictures that follow may be disturbing to many.  With that being said I will get to the story behind the pictures.

Saturday morning we got up and started getting breakfast ready.  Andy was home, luckily for my.  As he was reading an email to me we heard a crash followed by crying.  Andy walked around the corner of the counter, by the back door, and saw Nathan on the floor.  He said, "Nathan's toe popped open."  Nathan tipped the bar stool over on his big toe on his left foot.  I popped open along the base of the toe nail and around the inside of the toe.  It was bleeding pretty well and he was in a lot of pain.  We wrapped it with paper towel the best we could to get him to the ER.  (Andy offered to sew it up at home, but I thought it would be more traumatic for everyone if we chose that route.)  We asked our neighbor to come sit with the oldest three while Andy and I took Nathan in.  

We arrived at the ER and were taken straight back to a room.  (No one else was there!)  They gave Nathan something to make him not care about anything! Then they cleaned it really well and pushed the toe nail back into the bed as far as they could.  They said they weren't going to stitch it because that would increase the risk of infection.  After wrapping in we headed home.

Unfortunately the wrap wasn't taped to the foot very well.  After a couple hours of walking around and climbing on it the wrap came off and the toe started bleeding again.  I put a sock on it to keep Nathan from playing with it.  Too bad it was a black sock and I didn't realize it had started bleeding until he started leaving little bloody footprints wherever he went.  I took off the sock and the wrapping was off and saturated with blood.  I called Andy to see if he was done with his lab work.  He was just on his way to the car and hurried home.  By the time he got home the bleeding had stopped and he cleaned it well.  Then he re-wrapped the toe.  He did a much better job.

When Andy cleaned and re-wrapped it Sunday night it was looking better.  The first pictures are after the wrapping fell off the first time.  The last pictures are from Sunday evening.  Nathan is doing really well.  He hasn't slowed down at all!  It has been a little bit of a challenge to keep it dry and clean because he loves to be outside.  We will keep you posted on his progression!  (He is going to loose the nail.)

The original wrap completely saturated.

Nathan's poor little bloody foot.

Another  angle of Nathan's toe before being re-wrapped.

Nathan's toe on Sunday when Andy cleaned it and re-wrapped it a second time.

You can see how it split clear around the side of the toe.

Oct. 19-20, 2013