Crazy Crap Item #231: The part where the Caseys have a very bad day

[NOTE: No children were harmed in the posting of this story. Though the story itself was the source of some harm.]

Yesterday was full of drama and trauma on Norwood. Around 5pm, I was putzing around the entryway, after investing some considerable time in a new entryway-beautification project. What to my wondering ears should appear but my neighbor Ann calling to me.

I opened the door to find her out on the lawn holding James. She's a very laidback lady, so it took me a few seconds to realize that she was in full-on panic mode. It's not initially very far off from regular Ann mode, except that in panic mode, she doesn't finish sentences.

It also took me a few seconds to notice a lot of blood on her shirt, at which point, it very slowly dawned on me that something was terribly wrong. I cut her off in mid-sputter. "What happened?" She started to say something about how she had called Ruth because James had a cut on his head, and could Jack come over, and Sam too, since Ruth was going with her to the ER. I said of course, and called to Jack to come in.

The poor kid was extremely freaked out. He was just crying and asking, "Is my brother going to be OK?" I told him I knew it was scary, and did he want to talk about it? He said no, that would make it worse, so I suggested chocolate milk and cartoons. He thought that seemed ok.

As we sat on the couch looking for a good kid-type show, he broached a few comments about how worried he was about his brother. He seemed very concerned that it was just going to take too long for the ER folk to help James. As Jack is a logical, detail-oriented kid, I told him about triage, and how they screen patients to determine who needs immediate care. I recounted my last trip to the ER. In response to his worries about James feeling pain, I described the medicines they have to make pain go away.

Finally, we got to the big question.

"Is he going to die?"

I answered, "No. No, he's not. He is not going to die from this. He's going to be fine."

I've never seen such a visible sign of relief.

Then Sam came over, and they snacked on cheese, and played with some army men I just bought from the dollar bin at Target. Then we went outside and made swords out of styrofoam. Later, Sam's dad Kevin arrived home from work his son, who was miffed that Jack got to stay at the Dalys (the tenor of his complaint seemed to be something about how Jack gets all the fun).

By about 7:30, Jack, who had been waving off snacks for the past 2 1/2 hours, suddenly announced he was "starving." I hustled up some grub, and Jack, Eamon and I had a nice supper of chicken, corn and Scooby Doo cartoons.

Ann and Jim finally got James home by about 8:30. He ended up having 11 stitches, including 3 stitches deep in the wound, as the cut went all the way to the skull. But Ann said James didn't cry at all; everyone in the ER was amazed. And when they came to get Jack, James insisted on coming in, then leapt all over my livingroom, banged on my electric piano keyboard, climbed on the back of my couch, and, like his brother, was very reluctant to go home.

Ahh, the resilience of youth.