Public Service Announcement

Has anyone ever heard of a hair tourniquet? Neither had we, until Saturday after our Baptism. Apparently, it is pretty common. We were trimming the kids finger and toe nails Saturday evening. This was a good opportunity because we rarely ever see the kids' feet because they are always in footie pajamas. I went upstairs to get some socks for the kids and when I got back downstairs Jackson's 2nd and 3rd toes were bright red and swollen. We took him to Round Rock Medical Center ASAP. The emergency room doctor tried dissolving the hair with Nair 3 times with no luck and then got a scalpel and tried to cut the hair from between the toes. I am assuming that it was my hair because it was really hard to see and the children are always pulling out chunks of my hair. After several hours of trying to remove the hair, the doctor sent us to Dell Children's Hospital. Another doctor tried his hand at removing the hair, but he was not sure if he had succeeded. He decided that we needed to stay the night so that they could make sure that the swelling went down. If it did not go down, he said that we would have to have a plastic surgeon make a cut across the toes to make sure that that there was nothing left. We finally got into a room around 1 AM. The plastic surgeon met us in the room and said that he did not want to wait until morning and risk Jackson losing a toe. He tried poking around and thought that he still felt a hair. He decided that it would be best to do a closer examination in the operating room. So at 2 AM Jackson went into surgery. It was only a 10 minute procedure but Chris and I were worried sick. The surgeon was able to remove all of the hair. Jackson's little toes finally look like toes instead of cherries. They are still a little bruised and sore. We were very lucky that day in many ways. First, we caught the swelling toes in time. Second, Chris almost went to the grocery store around the time that we saw the toes. Third, Chris almost went home to let the dog out and would not have been there while Jackson was in surgery since we were not expecting the surgeon until the next day (Thanks Jess for letting Charlie out). Fourth, that the doctor at RR sent us to Dell instead of sending us home. We went to the surgeon on Monday and he was happy with the way the toes were healing. Chris and I were joking that Jackson is only 5 months old and has already had "work" done (got to keep that youthful glow). Having twins I think that this is just the first of many unusual experiences that are in store for us.