The Wonder of Glue

This past weekend, my son went to his first birthday party for a classmate. I feel lucky that he made it through almost an entire year of Kindergarten before the first invite. The party was at the local bowling alley. It was pretty much a kids only party, so we headed across the street to use the time to complete our weekly grocery shopping.

When we returned, our son had a bandage on his chin. I figured he had just tripped and bumped his chin. The mother came over and told us that he had been carrying his bowling ball back up to the racks and the ball had dropped. He bent over to pick it up and it bounced up hitting his chin. It didn't appear to be bleeding much, so I didn't worry.

When we got home, I decided, I better take a look at his chin and put some antibiotic cream on it. When I did, I noticed in cleaning that it wasn't a surface abrasion, but rather a split. It was only 1/4" long and not really bleeding, but with its location on the edge of the chin, it was obvious that it wouldn't heal right on its own.

I called my husband up to see it and to get his agreement that I wasn't crazy. We called the pediatrician and she recommended that we should probably go to get stitches to minimize scarring and help with healing.

We are fortunate to have a pediatric ER in a nearby hospital that is staffed by a couple of the pediatricians from the office we use, so we headed there.

My son was clearly upset about the thought of needles. We tried to allay his fears by sharing tales of everyone else who had had stitches, including us. When we finally saw the pediatrician and he took a look at it, he told us that he could glue it.

Yes, that's right, glue it. Gluing it meant no anesthetic, no needles, no itchy stitches to allow to dissolve or to come back to have removed. They cleaned up the wound, held it closed and applied three layers of surgical glue. The glue had a purplish hue to it when in the tube, but dried pretty clear.

The hard part now is making sure that my son leaves it alone and that it stays dry. The glue will start to loosen on its own after 5 to 10 days. After 5 days, we were told it is okay if he starts to pick at it, but before then, if the glue comes off, it won't be properly healed and our trip to the ER will be all for naught. We are keeping it covered with a bandage to keep him from playing with it and accidentally pulling it off. We are doing our best to make sure that it doesn't get wet. It can get splashed, but not soaked. Bath time isn't too bad, we just make sure we lean back for hair washing and wash his face around the glue. Thankfully, when the pools open this weekend, it will have been 5 days and it won't be a concern if it gets wet then.

Being able to avoid stitches by using glue, works for me!

For other things that work, check out Works For Me Wednesday at We Are THAT Family.