Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Emergency Room Visit

Well me made it over a year without having to take Owen to the emergency room so I guess it was about time. Last night after dinner he was just standing up holding onto the coffee table when he lost his footing and hit his face right on the glass. He's done this many times and just cried and had a bruise the next day, but this time was different. He let out a blood curdling cry and then not long after that came the blood. Of course Mommy started hyperventilating so poor Daddy had to deal with two babies. When Owen hit the coffee table it forced one of his upper teeth all the way through his lower lip. The bleeding stopped pretty fast and so did his cries. He's such a tough kid. I decided to call the pager for his pediatrician and the on-call pediatrician call right back. Her husband is also an ER doctor so she asked if it was necessary for us to go in. He said that it would be a good idea to go in and see if he needed a stitch or at least to get the cut glued shut. So off to St. Francis we went at 7:30 last night. The ER wasn't that busy thank goodness, but it still took over 2 hours for us to be seen. Owen was a real trooper all around. His normal bedtime is 7:45 so he was WAY overdue. Once we got to actually see a doctor he examined the wound and decided that there wasn't much he could do for the outside since it was already healing. The inside wound he could actually pinch together so he decided to glue it together just for good measure. Owen laid there so patiently while the doctor was checking him out, but he didn't much care for being held in place when they were gluing his lip. After the glue dried which takes about 20 seconds it was about another 20 seconds before Owen already had bit the glue with his teeth and ripped it off. It wasn't absolutely necessary so we didn't have them reapply it. All that wait and a $100 co-pay for basically nothing. Oh well you live and learn!

Once we got home we fed and changed Owen and put him to bed thinking he would just crash since he should have already been in bed for almost 4 hours, but that was not going to happen. He actually did go to bed pretty good at first. He slept for about 45 minutes and then cried and cried. We rocked him and gave him Tylenol, but he didn't really fall asleep until 1:15 this morning. He's still asleep right now, but I'm going to wake him up so he doesn't completely get off his schedule. I didn't take the camera with me to the ER, but I'll try to get a picture of his lip later today and post it.

4 comments:

  1. What a little trooper. I'm glad to hear he shrugged it off for the most part.

    And kudos to you for not being overprotective parents. I'm a firm believer that kids need to bang themselves up a bit so they don't spend their lives in fear of trying anything.

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  2. Yeah for the most part when Owen's falls and bangs his head we try not to react because that's when he cries more. I totally think part of growing up is getting banged up every now and then.

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  3. OH, and, if your co-pay is only like 500, this is a good start towards it. And in the beginning of the year, which is best.

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