Always Something!

So it was the day of my girls night out party and just as the party is starting and friends are coming over, I hear Zach screaming from the back yard. I went to the back door to see what happened and he was running towards me holding our toy butterfly net. He couldn't even catch his breath. I knelt down beside him, trying to calm him down when blood started ooozing out his mouth between his teeth. OH MAN!

I swept him up and carried him to the sink. I got a cup of water and told him not to swallow it but put some water in his mouth and then spit in the sink. That was the only way I was going to be able to see what was wrong. After a few minutes of that I looked in his mouth and there was a giant hole at the back of his mouth almost the size of a quarter. I asked him what he was doing? The only thing he was able to tell me was that he had the butterfly net in his mouth and something with a ball.

After he calmed down he fell right asleep on the couch. My sister arrived and we called her pediatrician's office, because mine had already closed for the day. I spoke with the nurse there and she took most of my panicking feelings away. She said they can't really do much for a mouth injury. Not only because of where they are located but because there is really good circulation in the mouth, there is always air, and it generally heals pretty good. She said that Zach would be in a lot of pain for about 10 days and to just watch him for infection, fever or bleeding. So I felt better having talked to someone that knew what they were talking about.

Dave went to his mom's house to fix her sprinkler's and some other yard work during my party since he is so very social. ha ha ha! When he got home, Alicyn ran right outside and put the panic in him. Told him that we needed to take Zach to the emergency room, had a big hole in his mouth etc. As the party went on, friends and family looked at it and tried to tell me that it wasn't so bad. Well after everyone left I looked at it again. I am certain I could see his jaw bone. So Dave and I talked about it and we decided to take him to our doctor the next morning for them to look at it.

Our doctor wasn't in the office so we saw one of her partners. Her partner came in and we told her about it. I told her that I knew that we can't do much for mouth injury's but we wanted to have him looked at just to be sure. She looked at me and very snidely said no, if it is bigger than a cheerio, it has to be fixed. She looked in there and then looked at me again..."this is a big deal", "this is bad". Made me shrink to the size of an ant. She said I need to go and call the emergency room at Primary Children's hospital. I will be right back. Dave and I waited, when she came back she told us that we had waited to long and they couldn't do anything, but she would put him on antibiotics and pain medicine. Which I was very grateful for the pain medicine because he wouldn't even sip water without crying that it burned. She also told me to bring him back on Monday so we could see our regular doctor.

The weekend went alright, thank heaven for codeine! Sunday Zach told me what he was doing when it happened. Our butterfly net was hollow plastic. He was blowing things out of it with his mouth and tripped over a ball. The force of his fall was of course in his mouth.

We saw our doctor on Monday. I told her the story and how I had called my sister's doc, they said just watch him...then decided to have him looked at and that doc said we did the wrong thing and he should have gone to the ER etc. Our doctor looked in his mouth and she told us that we did everything right. If we could have seen her on Friday night when it happened she wouldn't have done anything to the wound itself. She said that we just need to watch him and keep giving him the antibiotic. WHEW! How is that for story? Both Dave and I felt like better parents after seeing her and having her look at Zach.

By the way, Zach still has a hole in his mouth, but it is healing very nicely. A few things still bother him when he eats but for the most part...all better! Our butterfly net...in the trash!