Thursday, May 27, 2010

The Scar, April 29

Caleb was running around with a pen in his hand, apparently, and he tripped, fell, and the pen stabbed him in the face. The cut looked like something sharp like a certain tree fruit he had been carrying around as a sword/guitar had done it, but all Cara Bergthold found by him was the pen. So we are going with that…of course, now a new story has developed which involves a safari hunt and a lion attack. It sounds much more exciting than a pen!

Cara is serving in Madagascar, but in Tennessee, she was an ER nurse. Thankfully, she found him and not me. When I saw Doug with him, and saw his face and the blood, I got a little faint.

Anyway, I got a wash cloth, wet it, and Doug held it on his face until we got to Nurse Renee's room.

We put ice on his face while we readied the super glue.



She cleaned it as best she could and then super glued it together. Caleb was the BEST patient ever!!

The glue was perfect on the part close to the mouth, but in the bottom part of the "smile" it wouldn't close right. It kept oozing.

Doug left with his helper for the funeral visit, and I stayed with Caleb. We read a ton of books (no DVDs or TVs), but he was ready to play Monopoly after about 2 ½ hours.

I noticed during the game that he was still oozing,

so Renee decided to glue him again. When Caleb smelled the betadine and super glue, he cried over the SMELL, not the pain. When he cried, he moved his face in such a way that it opened the hole wider. We finally got more glue on it, and bandaged it up.

Doug had prayed over Caleb in the morning, and it really calmed him. I prayed over him and so did Renee throughout the day. Later that night, after getting his bandaged changed, he said, "Can't we pray before we go play games?"

God really did great things! The cut was able to be fixed with glue; it wasn't close to his eyes; it didn't puncture through to his mouth; and Caleb survived. That pen could have gone anywhere! Thank you, Jesus!

It opened one more time, but we could see it was healing from the inside,

so we steri-stripped him together, and it turned out great in the end.

We had a rough first week keeping it held together, but as you can see, he as since healed!

We mentioned putting some "scar remover" oil on it, and he got very upset because he doesn't want the scar to go away. So even though we are applying it, he calls it "Scar Shine" and doesn't remember what it's for. ☺

Renee felt awful and kept saying that in the States he could have gone to a plastic surgeon. But God gave me such a peace. Poor Renee went to give a presentation on malaria and wrote on the white board with a permanent marker. She has since become Caleb's favorite person in the
whole world, and he has a serious crush on her. They spent LOTS of time together, mostly because he would always say, "I'm going to go find Miss Aunt Renee."

1 comment:

Micah said...

Oh wow. Those pictures make me squirm. I'm so glad he healed well! We were definitely praying for him here and it is cool to see how it all turned out.

I LOVE that he was asking for prayer in the middle of it all. God is working in your fam for sure.

Love you guys and so glad to have you back with internet access!