My first time getting a serious injury that required stitches was a quite interesting experience. I still remember the whole incident like it was yesterday. I was only seven years old. It was at night and my sister and I were playing with my neighbor. We were running around the front yard without a care in the world until I got hurt, badly. An arrow head from the fence we had on the lawn went through my back almost piercing my lungs. I remember the feeling; it was like a hard scratch and then my body went into shock. Numbness overtook my body. I was sort of hanging on the fence until my neighbor came and "unhooked" me. When he put me down I quickly ran to the bathroom and saw the puncture wound and knew it was serious but I just tried to forget about it and continued playing. Eventually my neighbor told my sister what happened and saw my wound and told my parents. I was so scared of my parents yelling at me that my body started to tremble and I started to cry. I cried and cried because I thought I was going to get in trouble but that wasn't what actually happened. Instead of yelling at me, they helped me. They all got rags and water to help stop the bleeding and put all kinds of liquids to sanitize the wound. Then they started the car and wrapped my in a blanket. I remember hearing crickets chirping and my family murmuring things to my neighbors. I remember the smell of the blood and the alcohol they used to sanitize it. I had no clue on what the blanket was for until a sudden chill went through my body. My body began to shiver and I was freezing. The soft blanket wrapped around me wasn't enough.
I remember rushing into the hospital and my mother was very nervously filling out paper work. Right after she was finished a nurse came and told me to lay down on my stomach. I wasn't scared or nervous, I just wanted to go home. I remember the sound of my mom's shoes pacing on the floor. She kept saying everything was going to be okay and not to be scared, but frankly I think she was the only on e who was afraid. The nurse penetrated my open flesh with needles, she said they were to numb the pain. I felt a lot of pain, but I didn't say anything because I didn't want to make the nurse feel like she doesn't know how to do her job. After all the needles, wiping and sanitizing she picked up a large needle with bright white string attached to it. She took it and pierced my inner flesh and I just grind my teeth. I turned to look at my mom and she was trying not to look at it. When the nurse was done she picked up another needle that had wire attached to it and started to completely close up my wound from the outside. This one hurt a little less. I remember they told me that "it never happened" and that you couldn't even tell it was there. Then she patched me up and I stood up and carefully made the little hospital bed. The nurse called me crazy for doing that because she said she had never seen a child not cry through the process and still get up feeling fine.
Well we finally left the hospital and I fell asleep during the car ride. Now, nine years later, I have a huge scar to remind me of that day forever.
