Our First Trip to the Pediatric ER

Well the title says it all. Yesterday, January 30, 2010 marks our first trip to the hospital for an Andrew injury. He made it exactly 1 year, 5 months 1 week and 6 days. Which isn’t a record overall but sure is for our family. I can only imagine that a) this will be the first of many trips and b) that mommy and daddy can only do better from here on out.

So here’s what happened, and it’s so mundane it’s hard to imagine how it could possibly have been prevented. It was around Andrew’s afternoon snack time. He gets a cup of milk and usually a few apple slices or Cheerios. So A. handed him his sippy cup of milk and an apple slice, not unlike what he or I do on a regular basis. He walked into the other room, slipped on the floor the way babies do and fell forward. What he did amounted to biting his lip. Only, he bit the hell out of it. There was so much blood that at first I was sure all his teeth had fallen out and been swallowed. There were several minutes of “oh my God, check his mouth again, are you sure he has all his teeth still?” But then we realized that yes, he did in fact have his teeth and that the blood (and OH the blood) was coming from the holes he’d made in the space between his lower lip and his chin– really right below his lip line. He’d bitten right through. We knew his teeth were sharp but this is clear proof. I’m considering putting a sign on my door that says “Beware of the Child”. Thankfully he’s not a biter!

So anyway, he calmed down and I wiped him off and as an aside, yes I did manage to wash all the blood out of his clothing thankyouverymuch, I must be what is that word again? Oh yes, domestic. I thought he was going to be okay but the pediatrician on call told us to take him to the After Hours Emergency clinic. Well now I for one didn’t think we should go. He was perfectly calm at that point and the bleeding had stopped but A. thought he should go. He told me to stay home and get some rest (which I desperately needed). So I did, I stayed home and fell asleep thinking he’d be back 20 minutes later with some derma-bond on his lip. Instead I get a semi-frantic call which led to me getting in the car and racing down there for what I wasn’t sure. That’s when I finally hear the word “stitches”. Yup, my baby got his first stitches. Two of them.

I’m proud to say he’s handling it like a champ. Better than his blubbering parents. I mean, who can handle seeing their child strapped down to a board in a straight jacket like contraption while their child’s face is stitched up? Well if you can you’re a stronger person than we are. I have to give daddy a lot of credit because he was actually there for all of it and I got there as they were finishing up. It pains me to think that I wasn’t there for him but I honestly thought it wasn’t that bad. Just goes to show what I know. And since he didn’t even make it to age 1 1/2 before needing his first stitches I cringe as I say, next time I’ll do better as a mommy. I just hope next time is a LONG time from now.

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