Moving HELL

Moving is stressful enough on its own, but what if you throw in a couple of medical emergencies just to make the day even more "interesting"?

The morning started off well enough. M's brother had come down from Amsterdam to help and we had a good laugh about the dog, who snored loudly for the better part of an hour while 5 burly strangers literally carted all of our belongings out of the house!

We were just about finished throwing the last bits and pieces into boxes when the school called: S's finger(s) had been slammed in a door, it was bleeding, possibly broken, and we needed to come get him immediately to take him to a doctor. Of course my jacket had been packed, my keys had been packed-- I'm lucky I actually had shoes on! ;-)

So I raced down to pick him up-- his hand was bandaged and he had blood all over his shirt, but it seemed like his finger(s) had stopped bleeding by that time. Took him to the pediatrician who confirmed that he wouldn't need stitches, but who forwarded me on to the emergency clinic here in town so that he could have some x-rays taken. We were giving all of our information when an acquaintance got wheeled past on a brancard to be taken to the hospital with a broken leg!!!

S got x-rays taken and we were waiting for the results when suddenly I hear M's voice! ??? Turned around and was shocked to see him standing there next to one of the movers, who was holding a huge wad of paper towels on his head! Apparently one of his buddies had put some 2,5 meter metal poles on top of the truck, but hadn't secured them. When this guy pressed the button to open the back of the truck, the door pulled a pole off the roof, it fell from the top of the truck, end first, DIRECTLY ONTO HIS HEAD! M saw the whole thing happen and said it was completely surreal!

So of course the moving guy is bleeding like crazy. M rinsed him off with some water, gave him a compress and brought him to the emergency clinic. His brother stayed behind to clean up the blood and help coordinate the other 4 movers who just continued on with their work.

In the end the poor moving guy had a 6 cm gash on his head which took 7 staples to close!!! He looked like Frankenstein and actually even schlepped some heavy stuff after we got back to the house!

S's finger wasn't broken after all, thank God. The door had actually closed all the way, and his finger had split in three places, but the wounds were superficial, luckily. He wore a cast for a couple of days, which meant no homework and lots of attention from the other kids in the class. (Oh, and he told me somewhat proudly yesterday that he left some impressive blood stains on the carpet in the classroom.)

We're now paying for the chaotic nature of the last hour of packing-- I opened up a box yesterday looking for B's shoes and found a dead plant, a pillow case and a box of cat food. There's a light at the end of the tunnel, now, though, and I'm just hoping that it's not the train......................