Ouch!

WARNING! This post contains some extremely graphic pictures. If you have a weak stomach or just don't want to see pictures of absolute grossness, you'll want to skip this post. If, on the other hand, you are completely intrigued by this disclaimer, read on! (For the faint hearted, you can still go ahead and read the post; we'll make sure to give you a warning letting you know to not scroll down any further.)

Here's our oldest son, J. He was supposed to be at Scouts. As you can see, however, he was in the hospital instead. Here's the story.

Last Wednesday, Jay was making dinner (a lovely concoction involving Ramen and broccoli; don't judge), when he heard, "Get Dad! It went through my foot!" Now, that's not a normal thing to hear, so he went out to investigate. The kids were all outside screaming such nice-to-hear phrases as, "He's dying!" and "We love our brother! He can't die!" Jay rushed to the scene of the commotion and saw J. on the other side of the fence with a rod STICKING THROUGH THE TOP OF HIS FOOT!

Jay hurried in and told Sherrie to call 9-1-1, then ran back to help our son. Jay held J. in his arms to keep him calm, and told him, "It's alright." J.'s response was, "It's not alright! It went through my foot!" OK, it's a bit hard to argue with that kind of reasoning!

You're probably wondering at this point just how in the world this happened. It went like this: J. was outside with his younger brothers and sister and a friend, playing football. It was a beautiful summer day, and we really do have nice grass, so they were, of course, barefoot. The ball went over the fence (It's only 4 feet tall), so J. hopped over the fence to get it. He landed right on a 1/2" thick utilities grounding rod, and it went completely through his foot! He was effectively nailed to the ground.

The paramedics and sheriff arrived within only a few minutes. In order to get J. free, they had to dig the ground under his foot and snap the copper rod with the Jaws of Life. He was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance (for the 3rd time in his life, we might add!) and the wonderful doctors removed the rod. Thank you, wonderful doctors! That rod was really in the way.

Now for some amazing things. Amazing thing number 1: despite the ridiculously high amount of bones, tendons, and ligaments in the foot, the rod missed all of them. There will be no permanent damage, other than a couple of really cool scars! Amazing thing number 2: J. did not cry during the entire ordeal. He certainly let us know he was in pain, but he did not cry. Actually, there were a few tears, but that was only when the doctor said he would be in the hospital until Sunday; he had been looking forward to seeing his cousin for weeks, and his cousin was only going to be in town for the weekend. The thought of missing out on playing with his cousin is what made him cry, not the HUGE HUNK OF METAL IN HIS FOOT! Amazing thing number 3: J. was out of the hospital on Friday, so he didn't miss a second of being able to play with his cousin. Amazing thing number 4: If you're a really sweet 10 year old boy, who doesn't complain at all about one of the most gruesome injuries ever, nurses give you all the ice cream you could ever want. Even if that amounts to about 300 a day. Amazing thing number 5: J. didn't die of ice cream overdose.

Alright, now for the good parts: the pictures! First, some non-graphic pictures:

Now for the really good part: the graphic pictures. So here's the promised warning:

WARNING: If you continue to scroll down, you will see some pretty nasty pictures!

You can still turn back if you don't want to see!

Last chance!

Congratulations! You made it to the gross pictures!

And here's the wound without the rod. It's healing up nice!