What a warrior-ess!!

Tilly the trooper

So Tilly had her first trip to ED in NZ last night (actually it's her first trip to ED anywhere come to think of it).  Full gory details after the break...

iPads make ED waiting a treat rather than chore

Tilly B sat on the bench
Tilly B had a great fall
All the Auckland doctors….
….and all the Auckland nurses
did put Tilly together again!


Tilly did a backflip off the bench at the kitchen table last night and managed to split her head open on the hearth stone with a 2cm full thickness (we could see the skull) laceration.

All done - 5 stitches, no tears.

Lots of blood, a big bandage and a somber Tilly resulted.  Then the inevitable hanging around in ED.  Tilly was fantastic - after the initial tears, not a complaint or fuss throughout the whole thing.  Several checks and second opinions later we were in a procedure room with Tilly using the special 'snorkel' to breath in the 'giggle medicine' (her words - you might know it as nitrous oxide a.k.a. laughing gas) while she sat perfectly placidly on my lap (albeit giggling away - never seen it actually do that in adults) while the ED consultant injected local anaesthetic into the cut, then poked away at her skull to decide if there was a fracture there or not.

Thankfully the consensus was that there wasn't - so it was on with the stitches.  5 in total and Tilly remained totally unfazed.  The ED staff were so impressed with her that she was given a magazine and an ice block (ice lolly to the non-NZers out there) - much to Reuben's chagrin.  We did offer to split his head open so he could get a reward too, but he seemed less keen on that part of the process.

No lasting effects - or perhaps the laughing gas is still hanging around?

Today she's running around like a demented banshee - perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned to her that nitrous oxide is also used in engines to make cars go super fast - she seems to think it's having the same effect in her!

Now a last word from the heroine of the story, she'd just like everyone to be clear that "I still have the cut!"