15-Day Disabled List

Over the past couple of weeks, the managers of Team Chachi have fallen victim to a series of unfortunate events. Some inflicted by our beloved children, some self-inflicted, all painful (but recoverable!). I'm not one to use this forum to complain, so I won't. Rather, I'll just provide you with the sheer zaniness of it all.

Injury #1: Whiplash (or, Watch Out for That Oncoming Head!)
No, it wasn't a car accident. It was our younger son. Rosalie was leaning over the tub, washing his hair when he executed one of his customary, yet unintentionally violent motions and quickly raised his head up, smashing Rose between the eyes. The blow was so hard that it forced her head back and something approximating an "Muuhnnghph" came from her mouth. She was hurt. I mean - a full on helmet-to-helmet with my wife taking the brunt. A knot formed immediately - on her head, not Pete's. He was fine. Then for the next few days, she was experiencing odd neck pain. And not the standard neck pain a mother of two feels. She definitely wasn't concussed but things wasn't right. So after doing her research, Rose self-diagnosed whiplash. Take a peek at the symptoms and tell me she didn't hit the nail on the..erm...head (that was terrible).

Injury #2: Finger Avulsion (or, Yes, We Still Ate the Eggplant.)
Another injury to my bride. I won't go into the gory details other than to say that she cut a sizeable chunk of the tip of her finger off with a mandoline. Yep. Let me give you a minute to wince. She was slicing eggplant and like seasoned chef she is, was being badass and decided not to use the accompanying guard.

I was outside cleaning out the minivan when she calmly walked out, found me and said, "I may need you take me to the hospital. I think I sliced the tip of my finger off."

We both forced calmness in order to protect our sons' sensibilities but the scene itself wasn't terribly gruesome ("Um. For you it wasn't." - Rosalie). She had it wrapped up, Peter was napping and we explained to Vincent that everything was ok. After consulting with Nan, our chief RN, we headed on over the emergency room with the chunk in a bag of ice and milk. In my pocket.

Four hours, some gelfoam and a hefty bandage later and she was good to go. It's looking much better now and really, everyone says this but - it could've been much worse considering the affect a mandoline could have on one's digits.

Injury #3: Corneal Abrasion (or Time to Trim Your Nails, Kid.)
Finally, I got into the act. One night, I was placing Peter back in his bed after he had wandered into our room. He laid down, then instantly rolled over violently, with his arms outstretched and caught me right on my left eyeball. A perfect poke. I knew immediately that this wasn't your run-of-the-mill, wait for 5 minutes and its gone job. He got me good.

So as he went back to sleep, I laid down in his bed, gripping my eye, wondering what to do. I figured it might help to keep it closed, so I just fell asleep again in his bed for a few hours hoping it would heal by the morning.

Turns out corneal abrasions don't quite heal that quickly. I thought I could tough it out. I showered, shaved, changed and got ready to head out to catch my train and realized I had done all of that without the use of my left eye. That was it. I called the eye doctor, got it checked out and after a few days of drops, I was fully functional again.

The human body sure is amazing, isn't it? We've been lucky it's been us tough-assed adults and not our chilluns getting hurt. Their time will come I'm guessing.

For now - we'll start using the guard.