3 of the LONGEST days of my life!!! (Part 1)

I know this is quite lengthy, but it involves a blown out tire, bike wreck, trip to the ER and stitches!!!

Ok, to begin with, I can't believe I forgot my camera at home today!!!! Of all days, a pretty easy one at work, I forget my camera. SO, tomorrow I will post a few pictures from our week. Unfortunately there are not many from the camping trip.......and here is why......

Friday afternoon Carlton came in and told me that someone from our church had offered to let us stay in their camper that was already there at the park. So after talking about it some and making sure with the kids that it was okay with them, we decided to take them up on the offer. They had told us that the nights there had been very cold, and we just thought with it being our 1st camping trip it might be best.

Friday night Carlton and I got everything packed up that we had been collecting and ready to go. (I had called my mother and another friend to tell them to pray for us.....that if we could just get through the packing up, then we would be okay because Carlton and I DO NOT pack well together!!!)

LOL.....little did I know!!!!!

Saturday morning......we got up earlier than we had planned because my bike was messed up and we had to go to Walmart on our way out. The rim on the front tire was bent. We had only had the bike for about 2 months and I have only ridden it a few times, so we knew it had to have been that way when we bought it. Walmart was gracious and allowed us to return the bike without a hassel!

The trip to Garner was fine....the kids were civil to each other in the car, we stopped in San Antonio for lunch and Carlton's Dad and uncle Philip met us there. After lunch we headed to Concan. We stopped in a town about 45 miles from the park to get our groceries. I spent MORE than I had planned to spend, because Carlton and the kids were with me! You know how that goes!!!

We got to Garner, the kids were excited. Carlton said he had to unload all the bikes so that he could go get the camper and move it to our spot. SO, we got busy. This is where our trouble started............Timothy's tire had blown out on the way. HOW...not sure....but it did......so Carlton told him that we would go BACK into town in the morning to get the tire. We needed to get the camp set up and get dinner going. Timothy was fine with that (he usually is....).

We got everything up and running. We got dinner going, ate, took baths and got settled in for the evening.

Then morning came....EASTER morning..... We all woke up, had a small devotional, talked about Christ on the cross, in the tomb and His resurrection. Carlton allowed Timothy to tell us this story in his own words and I wish I had pulled out the video camera. It was SO sweet.

After our time in the word, we loaded up and went to Uvalde (31 miles away) to get a tube for Timothy's tire. We got the tube, came back to camp and Carlton realized that he should have bought a wrench or something to take the tire off the bike. I looked around the camper and couldn't find one, so I just walked around to a couple different camp spots and asked some total strangers if they had a wrench my dear hubby could borrow. And I found one. SO he got the tire fixed and we all started off on our bikes.

We came to this hill (this is where ALL the trouble really starts!!!!!!) Carlton stopped at the top of the hill (not a terribly steep one...but steep enough) Rachel looked at us like we were crazy thinking that she was going to attempt that hill and pulled one of her stubborn moments refusing to budge. Timothy on the other hand was determined to go down that hill, because at the bottom of that hill was the river and his main goal was to see the water.

So Carlton decided after talking to Timothy and reminding him that he would have to use his brakes a lot, that the two of them would go down the hill, and Rachel and I would take another route. I stayed at the top of the hill to watch him go down. Carlton headed down a little in front of him. As soon as he got started down this hill we (Carlton, me, and the campers around us) could see that it was NOT going to be pretty. You could hear me and Carlton yelling.....

"(USE YOUR BRAKES....USE YOUR BRAKES!!!!!!!)

But it was not happening!!!!! All of a sudden you could see his handle bars moving back and forth and then the inevitable happened........HE CRASHED.......

I screamed......I didn't see him actually hit the ground......but I heard Carlton yell, "OH MY GOSH....OH MY GOSH....." The campers that were there grabbed Rachel and I took off running toward them. Carlton had picked him up at this point and was yelling up the hill to me....."GO GET MY TRUCK......GO GET MY TRUCK!!!!" All I could see was blood!!!

One of the campers there rushed me back to our camper and I got the keys and drove back to where they were. I quickly got out, opened the door and jumped into the back seat. As Carlton was handing him to me he said we had to get him to the emergency room, that he would need stitches. Timothy lost it again screaming...."I don't want to get stitches!" One of the campers was trying to make him feel better and said, "Maybe you won't have to!" But I looked at Carlton and his eyes were as big as salad plates and he shook his head (out of Timothy's sight) to let me know that he WOULD be needing stitches. Carlton had ripped Timothy's shirt off and used it to apply pressure to his chin and the camper had brought down a bag of ice, so I had not seen the chin at this point.

The camper's family walked Rachel down the hill to the truck and helped to get her strapped in. Then they took our bikes and told us that they would get them to the front office for us since they were leaving the park.

And we were off.....it took us about half the time to get to Uvalde than it took us that morning to get there.....Once we got there they put us directly back to a room. This is where I first saw the chin.......OH MY GOSH.....my baby boy looked as if he had another mouth below the one that God created! It was terrible!! You could literally see the boy's jaw bone!!! It was terrible!!!

Carlton came in and I looked at him with the..."I just saw the chin and you were right!" look. He jsut shook his head and closed his eyes! He felt so BAD about the whole thing....he kept saying, "I saw the whole thing...I thought I could stop it but I couldn't!" I told him he would be okay, and to not blame himself!

The doctor and nurse that worked with him were incredibly kind. The nurse brought Rachel stickers and colors and color pages and would check on Timothy then play with Rachel. She was an angel in desguise for sure!

They gave Timothy a dose of Benadryl and a dose of Tylenol with codine. We waited about two hours and the kid was still wide awake and still very much against getting stitches. SO about 30 minutes later they gave him another dose of the Tylenol with codine and an hour later he was still very much alert. However, he was becomming more open to the idea of stitches.

They told me to take a picture of the chin with my cell phone and let him see it! At first I thought, ARE YOU CRAZY...as soon as he sees it he will freak out!!!!! But I talked to him about it and he told me he would like to see it. SO I got out the phone took the picture and reminded him that it looked very bad....and very nasty!!! He giggled a little bit and said "OKAY! Can I see it now..." SO I showed it too him.....His first response was...."Yuk!" then it was, "Yeah, maybe it does need stitches!"On the phone it just looked like a huge hole in his chin....but later, after they had given him some deadening shots, he needed to go to the batroom. Of course he had to look in the mirror and when he did, he said, "ooooo, it lookes like I have another mouf" I laughed and told him I thought the same thing!

This whole ordeal, the bike wreck and ER thing started around 10 that morning.....by 6:30 that evening we were finally back at the camper, 8 1/2 hours and 8 stitches (two on the inside and six on the outside across the chin) later.

I am tired of typing and you are probably tired of reading.....More to come tomorrow!

YES there is more!!!!!!!!