Ever heard of a Hair Tourniquet?

So one night, in the middle of the night, when Elizabeth was just 8 weeks old, I woke to nurse her. After, I lifted her up to burp her and she let out a scream like I've never heard from her. It was pain, but I had no clue where her pain was. I comforted her enough to get her back to sleep and thought things were solved. In the morning Dave woke with her. He woke me up a little later and said that he'd changed her diaper and noticed that her toe was very swollen and that we should take her to the doctor. He'd made an appt with our family doc, but when I saw it, I said that we were taking her to urgent care instead. At the urgent care they discovered that some hair was wrapped around her toe so tightly that it cut off circulation. They tried to get it off but weren't sure if they got it all. We went home, but I was still uncomfortable about the whole thing. We called the office of the surgeon who took care of her umbillical cord and they suggested we take her to Children's Emergency Room. So off we went again. I had the worst fears go through my head - thinking that the only way the doctor is going to be able to get into and through the cut skin in her toe to remove the hair is to put her to sleep and surgically remove it. I was afraid of another hospital stay. But they were so kind to us there. They said it was called a hair tourniquet and that it's somewhat common in little kids. Hair can wrap itself tightly around fingers, toes, and even little boy parts too. They gave Elizabeth's foot a shot of numbing medicine (I didn't even think of that!) and brought it a bright light and dug into the cut skin. I had to step out of the room - thankfully Dave was there. After all the hair was out we put antibiotic cream on it and wrapped it up and took her home. What a relief that it was so much easier than what I originally feared. The nice doctor from the Urgent Care called me the next day to ask her how she was doing (so kind that she cared - and that she called!) I told her what we did, so she learned something new that day too.

In about 4-5 days the swelling of her toe started to go down, the skin finally scabbed where it had been cut, and she is back to normal now. But, boy, do I ever watch those toes for hair now!

The pictures are the progression from worst to getting better.