The Slivers

The Mom's arrived this weekend. Spent two days and are now prepping to whisk the kids away for the allotted time. It's been a rather enjoyable weekend. Puttering here, visiting there, and exploring places we haven't explored together.
As we were awaiting their arrival, Mr & I exchanged a few words while we tidied up a bit, and decided it was too damned hot in the house. A friend had discussed floating down one of the local rivers in the area, and we took him up on the offer. It was wonderfully relaxing, soothing, and the perfect temperature of water. The main bulk of this little river was really only about knee deep, and that was great, considering I let D float along behind me. H opted out of this one, and chose to walk along the shore with dad. This was a feat in itself.
Wednesday night we had visited this same friend. The kids were outside, racing around his porch (which wraps around his entire house) on various wheeled toys. I was chasing after H to put his shoes on, as the last time they did this he wound up with slivers in his toes that I had to remove, and he didn't enjoy it. Before I could make him keep his shoes on, he stopped, and told me he had a sliver, while hobbling over to have me get them out.
I removed between 18-23 that night when we got home, and the rest were too deep for me to get. I couldn't even tell which direction they were poking into his skin at. H was refusing to walk by this point. He crawled or tiptoed, or straight out refused to walk and insist you carry him.
I resolved to take him to the Dr the next morning, figuring they'd be able to give him a local or something so they could remove them. Dr appt. was made, and I picked up the boys to drop me off w/H at the Dr's while they carried on and set up at the beach. 30 minutes later, and the Dr we saw recommended we head south to Kamloops (90 minutes) to see a Pediatric Specialist, who is capable of sedating him to remove them all safely, in one piece, and all at once. OK. Panic button had been pushed, and I rushed around to cancel my afternoon plans. I packed what I needed, informed whom I needed to inform, and hit the road, picking up my Grandpa on the way for support. We got into Kamloops and made a quick stop at the bank (for my parking meter fare) and we headed straight for the ER at Royal Inland Hospital. We waited for Triage for a good 20 minutes, before they passed us through. They had been expecting us, and when the Triage nurse looked at H's feet, he winced and said he understood why.
We waited for a good 2 hours before they did the procedure, as they made sure any food he had eaten for lunch (no one told me not to feed him, and in panic I didn't even remember this simple rule) and got him settled down. The IV they gave him was hard on him, and he really wasn't pleased, but by the time he was calmed down from this he was almost falling asleep he was already so tired from the pain and emotions of the day. They began sedating him and attempted to start digging right away, but he really fought the drugs they gave him, and they wound up giving a very large dose. They took about 25 minutes to get about 23 large embedded slivers out of the bottom of his feet. He slept for 2 and 1/2 hours after the procedure was finished. I struggled with him to get him to come around because the dose was so large, he was very groggy and hardly knew what was going on. I held him for the entire procedure, and that is my saving grace.
There is hardly anything to compare (in my meager experience) how horrible it is to watch your child being sedated and put under.
I count my blessings that my Grandpa was there with me. I had refused to eat or drink, for fear that I would need to step away from the bed and leave H there alone. I realized that I was kind of hungry and asked him to go get me some coffee and a small bite to eat. Hospital time is so odd. It felt like forever, but also like a blink of an eye, and Grandpa was back with a big steaming cup of coffee and two super yummy breakfast sandwiches. He waited with me, and then he watched over H so I could go to the bathroom and clean myself up.
I was gone a total of 10 hours, I left town at 12:30 and didn't return until 10:30 at night. I was bone exhausted, and all I wanted was sleep, but once we curled up together I had a difficult time drifting off. He, on the other hand, slept like a rock straight through.
He limped a bit the next morning, and recounted vividly his harrowing tale to anyone who phoned to check up on him, and asked for special allowances all day, before we hit the river, and then, magically...everything was better.
I love that kids carry on after events such as these, it truly is an amazing thing to watch.
Oh, and I never took any pictures of the slivers, I really just didn't think they'd do it any justice, so I didn't even bother to try.