Dakota's Finger

Two Sundays ago, just as we were ready to walk out the door for church, Dakota fell off the barstool (or should I say with the barstool) and got hurt pretty bad. We figured her left ring finger must have caught the brunt of it and soon realized that is where all the blood was coming from. Darin tried to clean it up, but had to leave, briefly, to deliver flyers to the ward house. As I nursed her finger, I could tell that it was worse than we though. Her little finger was turning blue, was swelling up "big", and the huge cut in the top "digit" of her finger was very deep. After "Dr. Troy" looked at it, we were encouraged to take her to the Insta-care. Darin did that while I took the rest of the family to our 9 a.m. church. After our first meeting, Darin came in with Dakota (who was "flying" high on drugs at the time) to let me know what he found out. The x-rays showed 3 breaks in her finger...THREE! At first the Dr. thought the bone is what "cut" the finger, but soon he figured the sheer pressure of that hard, heavy chair landing full force in her finger is what split it open. There was nothing they could do for it, except give her drugs (pain killers and antibiotics). The swelling and bleeding prevented them from stitching it up. They were also worried about nerve damage in the finger. The Dr. did disinfected it, and then wrapped her finger up good (with pretty pink tape). He told us to keep the bandages dry for the next few days and then pull them off and put the splint he gave us on her finger. Dakota's finger was still too sore several days after, so we didn't put the splint on it. I finally put the splint on last weekend. Her poor finger is purple...fingernail and all. It makes me hurt just thinking about it. I am not looking forward to changing the bandages assessing the wound, as it is not a pleasant experience for all involved, much less Dakota. However, she has complained very little about her injury throughout the last week and a half. She's been a trooper. She's hardly needed any pain meds, and was very good about reminding us of her 3 doses of antibiotics a day. Luckily, she just finished up her last dose today. She didn't enjoy the taste of that stuff, and the face she pulled every time she took it was priceless. I wish I had gotten a better picture of her facial expression. Dakota throws the words "Motrin" and "Antibiotics" around like she's a pro. Brooklyn couldn't believe how easily they've been ingrained in her vocabulary. It will not be an easy recovery. Her finger will take several weeks to heal itself. We are just hoping for the best...no nerve damage and a straight, healthy finger bone. I took cute video footage of her talking about her experience at the doctor's office. Way cute. I haven't had time to get it on the computer and "tweaked" so I can put it on the blog (extremely time consuming). So the photos below will do for now. We luv' ya, Dakota!

Dakota's broken finger (pink as per her request)



YUCK!

This face doesn't even compare to the ones she usually pulled after a dose of the antibiotics. She was trying a little too hard to not make a face, cuz' I had the camera out.