Charlie's "hooked" finger

Nothing like starting the month of October with some excitement! Although it would have been nicer if it was a positive one.  All I have to say is, thank goodness our healthcare/insurance kicked in!

Charlie was so excited to try out his new fishing rod.  The boys also bought some new hooks, as they really wanted to catch the big bass fish that are in the lake:

Thankfully I was outside in the yard.  There's nothing like hearing your kids cry out your name when they are in distress!  And thankfully, they were both just across the street in the neighbor's backyard. Neither boy had brought their phone/watch to call in case of an emergency.  Lesson learned here!

So yes, there's a hook in Charlie's finger.  The bait that they bought has hooks at each end and to make matters worse, there are actually 3 hooks on each of those.  And while Charlie was trying to unhook the bass (yes, he finally caught one!), the open hook caught his finger as the fish was flopping around.  To make matters worse, 2 of the 3 hooks were imbedded in the fish, so it was really tough getting it off!

Thankfully our neighbor and previous owner were actually around the house, getting some plants from our yard. So they came over to help out. Graham, who was also quite emotionally distressed, went home to get wire cutters.  While we were waiting for him to come back, poor Charlie was crying so hard and all he kept saying was, "I want the fish to die!".  The things you say when you're distressed! Supposedly, he also said some really bad words, which he apologized for later to me.  Too funny!!

Anyway, so glad the Urgent Care was still open (of course this had to happen on a Sunday), and Charlie was taken care of: 

The doctor tried to yank the hook off without any pain killer at first and gosh, you should have heard Charlie scream!  And then, after a few shots of lidocaine, ta da...!!  She actually had to cut into it a little bit with a scalpel:

He didn't want to keep the hook but the nurse gave Charlie his little souvenir anyway.  Ha ha! Fish/fish hook: 1 vs Charlie: 0

The big bandage of Charlie's finger didn't delay any video-game playing!  And I'm so glad Graham is doing ok too.  This poor kid has endured a lot of trauma himself too - with 2 broken collarbones and what not!

Here's Charlie showing off his big bandage! It has to stay on for 24 hours:

And I am so paranoid about lake water, so Charlie is now on antibiotics too. I'm so glad the doctor prescribed that.  But of course, ice cream fixes everything too.  LOL!

You can barely see the cut on his finger (4th one).  I'm just glad it seems to be healing nicely and knock on wood, no infection:

Charlie bounced right back and went fishing the next day when he got back from school.  I think he did it just to prove to himself that he can still do it.  He did catch another bass, but not the one that caused him all this pain.  I'm guess it's probably dead by now eventhough we chucked it back in the lake. We never did get that hook out and there were also 3 adults squishing it to stop it from flopping about!

And oh, I asked Charlie how he unhooked the fish, and he said his friend did it for him. That's just too funny.  I'm glad the boys are having a good time around the neighborhood.  And come winter, they can go ice fishing and I won't be surprised if there's another hook on another finger one of these days. :-P