Midnight in the OR

This is a bit delayed, but I thought I would share:
On Saturday, 16th April, James and I had late-afternoon appointments at the International Medical Center hospital of Jeddah (one of the best in Jeddah and owned by one of my students' father). I was there to see a dermotolagist and James was having his knee looked at. While waiting for James to make a final follow-up appointment, Sydnie and I were in the main foyer. Rather than playing "What time is it, Mr. Wolf?" as Sydnie wanted to play, I recommended we sit down and watch a movie on the i-pod. There is a small platform at the back of the entrance foyer and as Sydnie stepped up onto this, she somehow tripped and fell face-first into the marble windowsill. I didn't even see the fall, as she was up before I even finished digging in my bag for the i-pod. She simply had her hand to her nose when I turned to look at her. The blood quickly followed and only then did Sydnie get very upset. I thought it was a nose bleed, as these can produce a lot of blood! After a minute or two I had a look to see whether or not the bleeding was slowing down (with the help of the baby wipes I managed to get out of my bag pretty quickly) and only then realized that this wasn't a simple nose bleed. Sydnie too was getting worried and began saying "please don't take me to the doctor, please don't take me to the doctor!"
It should be mentioned that when this happened my phone battery was dead and I had no way of contacting James, who could've been anywhere in this massive hospital. It is also worth noting that in spite of being in the front foyer of a hospital, it took about 2-3 minutes before someone stopped to see if I needed help. Well, let me see...screaming child, a lot of blood, yup, I needed some help! And to think... this help didn't come from a hospital employee, but just a kind man walking through the foyer! (I've asked myself and others about why I didn't get any help, and we can't help but wonder if this was due to me being a Westerner, or the fact that there is a law here that you can't stop to help people due to "blood money", which implies that if you are the last to touch someone before they die you will owe the family money for that person's life).
After another minute of dealing with a lot of blood and panic rising in my system, due to not knowing what to do or how to contact James, an ER guy showed up at the same time as James. Both are confused, but we manage to quickly move Sydnie to the ER. Sydnie wouldn't let anyone near her in the ER, due to some unexplained fear of doctors (during emergencies only). She asked over and over again if we could just go home, and tried to explain to us that this was "just a mistake". This broke our heart!
Lucky for us, the plastic surgeon was already on-site and came down to see Sydnie and assess the situation. By this time Sydnie had fallen asleep (as it was passed her bedtime, and with all the crying she did, she was exhausted) and the surgeon could have a bit of a look. We decided that Sydnie needed to be put under before he could suture the wounds (at least two of them from what we could see on the outside).

After a lot of drama, as Sydnie wouldn't let them put in an IV, put up a great fight against an injection and also didn't like the sleeping gas because "it smells bad and it isn't fair", she was finally held down in the OR and injected with something to put her to "sleep"! The funniest thing of the night followed her receiving this injection: after fighting us in complete terror of being held down, she yelled out "I want a plaster, I want a plaster"! She knew she deserved a band-aid after getting a "shot" and wasn't going to let us get away with not giving her one! The doctors and nurses had a great laugh together in the OR with me (as they got a huge bandaid, with nothing small in the OR)! I then held Sydnie for the next five minutes and watched her doze off; not a nice thing, really!
When Sydnie came out of the OR 45 minutes later, the surgeon told us she had three wounds that needed stitching: one inside her right nostril (which has dissolving stitches), one on her upper lip, and one to fix the severed skin between her two nostrils (called the septum). We spent the night in a private ward (which was very nice, indeed) and Sydnie was released early the next afternoon.

ONE WEEK LATER: April 16 (day before leaving for holiday)
In order to remove the stitches Sydnie had to be put under a general again. She was very alert going into the OR and had already thought about her options in how she wanted to be put asleep. Rather than going for the sleeping gas, she chose to have the injection. And rather than having a plaster after getting the shot she chose to ask for some water (the last bandaid they put on was so big that it took us all week to get it off and she didn't like this)! She was a true superstar in the OR!
She was quickly woken up and was quick to recover from the anesthesia.  Within an hour she was up and singing and dancing. We had to wait three hours though before being released. The wounds looked amazing and like they had months to recover (not just one week). We couldn't be thankful enough for how well her first "nose job" went give thanks for the plastic surgeon!

Thank you for many of your thoughts and prayers (as this was quite traumatic for Mom and Dad)! We are grateful for the many positives and blessings in all of this: already AT the hospital, helpful stranger, surgeon on site, flexible and patient doctors dealing with hysterical toddler, great health insurance, quick healing!