When One Twin Is Injured

Remember that twins like to get in trouble. There seems to be an escalating spiral of mischief where they feed off the energy of each other until things culminate in an accident or injury.

One recent afternoon, our girls were playing in the backyard with their brothers. The entertainment of choice in this case was to spin the back tire of their bicycle while poking a stick in the spokes. This makes a very fun noise and stimulated the senses of our children.

Unfortunately, little children also have fingers that somehow get put in places they shouldn’t go. In this case, our youngest daughter inserted her finger into the spinning wheel. The finger then got sliced open. Ouch!

Treating the Injured Twin

Mom immediately applied some first aid to treat the finger. Unfortunately, we could only control the bleeding if we kept pressure on the wound. This situation meant that she needed stitches.

We dropped off our older boys at their baseball practice and took our girls to the urgent care center near our home.

There are inherent challenges of taking an injured child and a healthy sibling to the emergency room.

Most of your attention, rightly so, is on the injured child. Make sure if you must bring the sibling along that you have something for him or her to do.

The non-injured sister was sympathetic to her sister’s plight and offered to comfort her and talk to her. However, when it came time for the stitches, we had to keep the healthy sister at a safe distance and entertained. She sat outside the exam room blissfully playing on the iPad while her sister wailed inside the room.

It took both my wife and I to restrain my daughter during the quick procedure to stitch up her finger. Not all medical facilities will let two parents into the exam room. But it definitely helped us care for our daughter.

After the procedure, my injured daughter got a popsicle and was happy as can be. She then relished all the attention she received for her accident and injury. Fortunately, this didn’t lead to any copy cat accidents!