Eli Mattson and Mushmouth

Tuesday night last week, our family went to a nice dinner buffet, then hurried home to settle in together and watch America's Got Talent. Or so we thought.

We'd arrived home just fine, taken our shoes off, and we were getting comfy when our youngest, aged 4, was goofing around a bit and fell, hitting his mouth on the corner of a big Rubbermaid tub. We're used to him falling and crying a bit, and I held out my hands to him for comfort. Then I saw the blood.

I said, "Ohhh..there's blood this time." Don went and grabbed a WHITE hand towel. I held it to the boy's mouth to try and slow the blood. At this point I thought he had just busted his lip, but the blood wouldn't slow at first, and wasn't JUST coming from the ouchie bottom lip. Upon further inspection, he'd torn some of the skin of the lip away from the gum, and that was the cause of the flood o' blood. He'd bruised his upper gum pretty good, too. Seeing how deep the lip was cut, and seeing that ickyness under the upper lip, I informed Daddy a trip to the ER was in order. Daddy immediately goes into freakout mode: "Why? What's it--what--why?" Which causes the baby man to go into fresh cries, this time of panic rather than pain. I'm trying to give comfort, staunch bloodflow, keep blood OFF my workclothes, and soothe Dad all at the same time.

We all got our shoes back on. I had the presence of mind to start the VCR recording for AGT (was gonna start in like 20 min), and we headed out the door, lil holding his own towel now. (Still managing to cry through the fluffy terry-ness)

We'd arrived at the end of valet time, but we managed to find one of the "Emergency Patients Only" spots right outside the doors. I was worried about the kid, but also had visions of CPS visits in my head...especially seeing as his first day of school was the following DAY.

Once inside, I was careful to try and let lil answer for himself. But of course IF we could get him to move the towel, poor thing sounded like Mushmouth from Fat Albert. We went through triage pretty quickly, and they took us back to one of the trauma rooms. I finally got to wash my hands, and wet a paper towel to wash off lil's hands, as well. We told him he could put the towel down now, but he showed us that when he put it up there and pulled it away, there was more blood on it. Ok, fine, whatever makes you feel better. But then the shock had worn off and he was saying OW a lot. The nurse came in, asked what happened, talked to him a bit. As she left, she pulled the door shut, telling us the room across the hall was the prisoner room, and the language sometimes could peel paint. Wonderful! Something else to worry about.

Then the intern came in, asked what happened, then asked him if he wanted something to make it feel better. I asked him if he wanted Tylenol or Ivory Potion (what my kids call Ibuprofen), and he said, "ibory poshub." She brought him an ice-pack and later a nurse brought a dose of Ivory...errr, Ibuprofen.

So there we were, sitting in a trauma room in the ER, watching America's Got Talent cause we just can't miss seeing if Eli makes it through (and he wasn't even on til THIS WEEK). At least we were together, watching it as a family, even if we weren't at home, and even if one of us had this HUGE ice pack held up to his poor lips with one hand, and reaching for (and holding) Mama's hand with his other.

After a while, the intern came back in with the ER doctor. He introduced himself and shook hands with Don and then me, saying he was Dr so-and-so, the Physician on Duty. Don snickered as he closed the door once again, saying "he said doody."

I can't take him anywhere!

It flew over the Dr's head, but the intern got it. She chuckled a bit.

Doctor took a look, said we'd let the frenulum heal on its own, but we'd need a couple of stitches in the bottom lip. They'd put in ones that would dissolve within a few days, they said, and the lip would probably be healed even before they dissolved. He told the intern how to do the stitches - one down inside the lip, and one bringing the skin surface together - and left. Meanwhile middle child piped up he had to pee. Don took him in search of a bathroom, with lil trailing behind, cause he ALWAYS has to pee.

Lil got back to the room just ahead of the intern with her lil kits of torture, and she got all set up. I ran interference at the door, and when Don came back with ds6, I asked him to go find me something to drink. Don has a MAJOR needle phobia. He can get shots and have blood drawn, as long as he doesn't SEE the needle.

Lil was pretty brave for the numbing needle, except for keeping putting his tongue in the way and saying it tasted bad. I thought it would be cool to watch the stitches being put in, and I was fine until it seemed like he was feeling some of it, then I got wound up inside. I'm afraid Don got his head bitten off a bit after the intern and the nurse who assisted her left, and Don was fidgeting with the bed, trying to get it back like it had been before they did the procedure. He was starting to get stressed out with it, and I just couldn't take one more thing at that point, yanno?

Poor lil was right as rain after. Playing and being his old self that very same night. Poor Mama, though, is still recovering. At least he doesn't have the fat lip anymore, and even that seemed to bother me a lot more than him.

On a side note, Eli IS through to the Top 10. Woohoo!