On the evening of Valentine’s Day, Julie fell while playing at her grandparents’ house, deeply cutting her forehead. Annette and I rushed over to the house and took Julie to the hospital, knowing she would almost certainly need stitches.

A screaming, pleading four-year-old doesn’t know and can’t understand that the person poking needles through her skin is trying to help her. It took me, Annette, and two nurses to hold Julie down, trying to keep her still while the doctor steady-handedly ran the needle in and out, expertly sewing up the wound with five stitches.

If I ever have to give a child stitches (an unlikely occurrence considering my career in computers), I’ll pretty much be done with work for that day. It’ll be time for me to take the rest of the day off and just relax… come home and pour myself a big glass of Coke. Actually, I think maybe you’d better get that Coke for me, Annette… I’ve had a hard day. I’m worn out… I’ve done my duty, you know?

But by the time Julie recovered enough to be ready to walk out to the car, the medical staff who had helped us had already moved on to other emergencies. That night, as I was getting in bed, that doctor was probably helping fix some other child’s injury. Or preparing to come out to tell some anxious family that, despite his best efforts, dad wasn’t gonna pull through — the injuries from the car wreck were just too severe.

Hmmmm, maybe something a bit stronger than Coke would be warranted.

Anyway, a big thank you to all those in the medical profession.

Here’s the patient after she got her stitches out. She’s doing very well.