The Fort Strikes Again

Yesterday I told you of Riley's scratches and lows stemming from building a fort with his brother. It seems the fort has something against my kids.

I was sitting at my office. My phone rang at 4:50 PM. Holden asked, "Are you getting ready to leave?"

"In about 10 minutes. Why?"

"Um, can you just stop by Grandma's on the way home?"

"OK. But, it will be a few minutes."

"Well, just hurry up if you can."

I didn't think anything of it. I figured since they are building the fort behind my mom's house that they had finished and wanted me to stop by and look at it.

I pulled up in my mom's driveway and Holden came out the door. He had blood all over his shirt and his jeans. He pulled up his shirt sleeve to reveal a very thick bandage that was soaked through with blood.

He said that he and Riley were in the woods at the fort. They had packed a cooler with juice and also brought Riley's machine. My mom was back there with them too.

Riley had to use the restroom so my mom took him back to the house, leaving Holden there alone. He's 17. You'd think he'd be OK for a few minutes by himself, but not my child.

He proceeded to try and push down a tree. The same tree that my mom had told him to leave alone because it was too big to be messing with it. But, being that he's 17, the exact age where you know everything, he started pushing on the tree anyway.

As he's pushing, all of a sudden he feels a large object land on his arm. The top 4 feet of the tree had broken off and fallen on him. He said his first thought was that he had broken his arm. He grabbed his arm and looked down. And that is when he saw the blood.

He said he just started running back to the house. As he entered the house Riley came around the corner and saw the blood dripping onto the floor and started yelling for my mom.


She said that his arm was covered in blood and it was dripping all over the floor. As she started cleaning it up she realized that it was a hole not a scrape.

As soon as I got home I removed the bandage. Holden's arm had a very deep hole in it. It looked like someone had stabbed him with an ice pick. We're guessing that a tree limb stabbed him in the arm. It seems it was none too happy that he was trying to push it down.

Puncture wounds are very prone to infection. So now I'm worried. And I will be gone all weekend. Holden has promised he will keep a close check on it and also keep a check on his temperature.

Ah, the fun of parenting boys.