Ryan will be five in January, and up until Saturday night, we have been such perfect parents <joke>, had the luck of never having to take him to the emergency room.
It had just finished raining on Saturday night, at 7:30. Ryan was begging to go outside in the backyard and play. We told him sure, and off he went-running. A second later we heard him screaming, like we have never heard him scream before.
Joe went outside to see what was wrong, and when I heard him say “Where did all this blood come from?” I ran outside too. Joe was carrying Ryan in, and I was horrified to see a lot of blood running down Ryan’s mouth. I couldn’t even see his mouth-it was that bloody. I had no idea what had happened, but saw his chin was bleeding and so was his knee.
Poor Ryan was so hurt and upset. Through his tears he kept saying “My blood, my blood.” I think it freaked him out to see so much blood, and when I glanced out the kitchen window, I saw our entire walkway in the backyard was covered in it. He obviously fell, and either bit his lip as he fell, resulting in the cut, or the impact when he fell made him bite down on his lip.
As we cleaned up his mouth, we saw that his lip was split, just behind his lip, and it was deep. Joe thought he needed stitches, so we left for the ER.
To make a really long story short, the ER was backed up for hours. A nurse graciously came out and told me we would be sitting there for hours. She looked at Ryan’s lip and said he did need to be seen by a doctor. Thankfully my brother, Jeff, had been at home, and was able to look up the number to the Children’s Hospital Urgent Care Clinic in a town about half an hour away for us. I called and they were open until midnight, and she said there was only about a fifteen minute wait.
Ryan in the meantime, had calmed down a bit, but he was still really in a lot of pain. His mouth had stopped bleeding too. He kept coughing though in the car, like he was gagging, and I was hoping he wasn’t going to be sick-probably from all the blood he had swallowed. He didn’t want to drink anything, and he screamed if we so much put ice near his mouth.
By the time we had waited at the ER, and drove to the urgent care center, and finally was seen by a doctor, two and a half hours had passed. The doctor said it was our call if we wanted Ryan to have stitches. She said fortunately, since the wound was on the inside of his mouth, there would be no scaring, and she said mouth wounds heal very fast. She also said all his teeth were fine. We didn’t really know what to do- the wound looked so bad, so I asked her what she recommended.
She said if it was her son, she would skip the stitches. She said it would require a numbing shot, and then the stitches. Joe and I agreed with her. Ryan was finally calm, and acting better (I am sure the Motrin the nurse gave him was helping), and we didn’t want to put him through any more trauma and stress, especially if it wasn’t needed. The doctor gave us some tips for cleaning the wound, and told us it should look better in a few days-not worse.
We left. Joe and I were starving- we had fed the boys dinner, but we hadn’t eaten before all this happened. There was a Wendy’s open, and Ryan asked for a Frosty, so we were happy he was feeling better.
Cole was just amazing through all of this. He was SO good and acted like such a big boy. At one point he kept pointing to his mouth, and saying “Ouch,” and wanted me to kiss his mouth. I think he was having sympathy pains for his brother.
We got both the boys a Frosty, and drove home. Around 11, we finally got Ryan to bed, and he was so tired. He fell right asleep.
On Sunday, his knee was sore, but he was feeling a lot better and had no problems eating, even though his lip is really swollen and the wound is black and blue. He went to his grandparents house with Joe, and had fun helping Dad and Grandpa cut down a tree, but he also took a long nap.
I’m glad in this case, the injury looked worse than it was, and now we have experience in dealing with a mouth wound. It never ceases to amaze me how resilient kids are, and how fast they can bounce back. It is kind of amazing we haven’t had more of these episodes, but with two active boys, I have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of the urgent care/ER yet.