My Two Patients

Last week I worked Tuesday and Wednesday, and when I got home from work Wednesday morning I found Daddy and Madison both in bad shape. When I opened the door they were both awake, which is unusual. They usually are still asleep. I saw right away that Madison had a runny nose nose and watery eyes. Then I saw Scott's hand all wrapped up. I was still in the doorway with the door wide open and my mouth hanging open. I asked him what happened and he told me the dogs were about to fight the night before and he tried to break it up. Then he told me to come in and shut the door. I had been in shock and had forgotten the door was still open! Once inside he told me the rest of the story. Apparently he was petting Ike (the 120 lb Rhodesian Ridgeback) when his other dog Norman (a Beagle mix) came up to try and get some attention too. However, Ike did not want to share Scott's attention. So he growled at Norman. Scott grabbed Ike's collar to pull him back and was going for Norman when Ike went to bite Norman, but got Scott's left hand instead. There are three puncture wounds on his hand (picture below) and it was swollen and red from a little above the wrist down. I tried to get Scott to go to the ER, but he wanted to wait and see if it would get better or worse. So, I layed down and tried to get some sleep. I woke up a little before noon to use the bathroom and Scott asked me to come and look at his hand. There were bright red streaks running up his arm halfway up his bicep. He decided he would go see his doctor. So, he fed Madison and layed her down for her nap, then left. I told him to leave her since he would be gone during her nap, however since she was so congested she did not want to nap. She still sucks her thumb when sleeping, and since her nose was plugged she needed to mouth breath and therefore was unable to suck her thumb. So I tried to lay her down with me, but she thought it was fun to play in my bed. I was exhausted and had to work again that night, so finally I let her cry it out in her bed (it took her about 10 minutes.) I was able to sleep the rest of the afternoon because Scott was back before Madison woke-up from her nap. But I was still extremely tired at work that night!
I was worried about our upcoming Disney trip with Scott's hand so badly infected and Madison being sick. I was hoping we would still be able to go!

Scott with his injured hand.

The hurt hand. You can see two of the puncture sites. The one in the center of his palm and the one on his wrist. There is another one around his wrist under his thumb. This picture was taken Friday, the swelling and redness had gone down a little by then.