Late Saturday night Vincent yelled down "Mom!" Stephanie had gone to bed early. It turns out that Vincent - who had newly acquired some knives again really without our permission - had knocked one fo them over and it had sliced a tendon in his foot. I knew from Vincent's voice that he needed to go to the emergency room. But I was annoyed because if he'd been asleep and not ever gotten the knives he wouldn't be injured. We had also told him he was responsible for medical copayments now that he was smoking, and ER copays had gone up to $150 at the first of the year (it would be his second time to an ER). Also - somehow he had smeered blood all over the carpet in his room. Vincent also couldn't find his health insurance card which I had given him upon request (in hinsight in error). Stephanie finally bundled Vincent into the car - at about midnight - and then to Baptist East hospital - a suburban hospital where we had been for my hernia surgery and Stephanie's blood clot lab work. Judging from the phone calls - amazingly on a Saturday night - there was no big line, and Vincent got in and got 12 stitches and crutches training and was back by about 2:45 a.m. In the picture above he is hobbling in the front door. I realized before he got there that he would be staying in Grandma Martha's/Jon's room - the computer room/extra bedroom - and in the picture low he headed in there with help from Stephanie.
While they were at the hospital - I hadn't dusted Vincent's room for several months and you could tell (although I'd cleaned his bathroom two months ago before I left for Florida) - I was cleaning blood off the floor and cleaned Vincent's room and bathroom - which was a disaster in general. He also had done little laundry for weeks and so I trundled loads of clean and dirty laundry down into the basement (where Stephanie is currently doing it - Vincent can't right now). After three hours I had cleaned up most of all of this (and dusted). (Sunday and Monday I finished the bathroom, went through the whole alcove (my stuff), and vacuumed.) I quit about 3:30 a.m. We called Monday for a professional steam cleaning for the upper floor (they didn't move furniture but went under the bed). Below are two pictures of Vincent's room - cleaned up - but with furniture elevated a bit to clear more area for steam cleaning. Before I moved anything into the house, we had the whole house - all three floors - professionally cleaned.
On Monday Stephanie took off the gauze over Vincent's foot for the first time and he took a bath - complicated - without getting his foot wet. I didn't see this process but got a picture (below) of his foot later that night - as he was propped up at the kitchen table. He tries to elevate it, read the post-stitches surgery carefully (you can see Stephanie reading over it in the second picture), and is often worried it's getting infected. The situation has also replicated the house arrest in that Vincent can't go anywhere without us - and is unlikely to try to go anywhere. This is nicely timed in between Vincent was helping Stephanie during summer school and when his friend Samantha is supposed to come back from Denmark (next Wednesday Tuesday). Vincent's appointment with the doctor - when he may get the stitches taken off and when he may get cleared to quit using the crutches - is also Tuesday.
Vincent's former prom date, Jessi - who returned from Minnesota and broke up with her on-line friend - has visited twice and was helping Vincent back into his temporary room during her first visit.
Tuesday all three of us went to Vincent's appointment with his psychiatrist - complicated because Vincent is now 18. I had taken Vincent there a month ago when Stephanie was still teaching. But we got there 15 minutes late and they asked us to reschedule. Here we were waiting for Dr. Knox. Things did not go great until Vincent ordered us out and - taking a second whole appointment up - Vincent and Dr. Knox followed up on a suggestion from his counselor and he got prescribed a name-brand antidepressant to go with the mood-disorder drug he'd already been taking (that we thought she was going to phase out). We explained that things with Vincent had been a little more up and down - but one issue might have been when Vincent first got back from the hospital and was dealing with court issues we didn't really press him on school work (and in fact he did some laundry and housecleaning when he couldn't see Sam because of the house arrest).
Tuesday I was finally at home when Stephanie was removing Vincent's gauze. (Viewer's alert) - here below is Vincent wound, having been stitiched up. Pretty gross (but no clear sign of infection, despite Vincent's worries).
Stephanie applied some lotion. Vincent has been taking Ibuprophen too, as long with his two psychiatric drugs.
-- Perry
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