High Maintenance Mom

The other week I had an intense two day meeting on campus. As I was walking back to the office, happy to have completed the long two days, I decided to stop by preschool and see if the teachers wanted the leftover cookies I had baked for Valentine's Day. As I opened the door I heard someone say, "wait, she's right here." It turns out B had fallen on the play structure and had cut his lower lip. It was bad enough they wanted me to check on him...

I went to the preschool to see him but he was already back outside playing. Apparently he had been playing freeze tag, a favorite game, and had fallen on the play structure, possibly due to tripping over a croc that had fallen off his foot. His lip was huge and bruised even after 20 minutes of ice. When I looked in his mouth there was a large laceration. Remembering a previous emergency room visit where I had been told that the current injury was a nothing but the scar on his nose should have been stitched. I opened the wound to try to gauge how deep it was. As I peered into his mouth, wishing I was back at my meeting, I realized I was never told how deep a wound needed to be for stitching. So I asked him how he felt and then requested that he take it easy for the next hour while I went back to my office.

In my office I carried on several conversations with colleagues before I remembered that I should check in with a doctor. I left a message with the doctor on call and then tried the pediatric dentist. We have a pediatric dentist because I thought one of B's teeth was growing in with a big black pit but it turned out he had been chewing on crayons. Calling the dentist, it turned out, was a good idea because he wanted to see B right away. I grabbed my stuff, grabbed B, and then spent almost an hour in rush hour traffic trying to get to the after-hours office.

By the time we got there his wound had pretty much closed and was not in need of sutures (again). I also received a call from the after hours doctor telling me to take him into the emergency room to have him checked out. His x-rays were fine but his top front tooth was sore so we were told to serve him soft or cut up food and to return in two weeks to see how the tooth was doing. It was possible the tooth would turn black in that time, which was not an indication that it was dead, just a sign that we would need to watch for some other indication a little later.

Last week S took B to the dentist while I was out of town for work. His tooth had healed and it looks as though he didn't damage the permanent tooth. I was glad I took him to the dentist and recommend a visit if your child ever has a bad fall.

Today B ran around at the zoo in his crocs and I didn't spend the entire time worrying he was going to fall again so it appears we have all healed. Even the cat appears to be healing from his stomach ulcer (yes, of everyone in the house who could have an ulcer, it's the cat who was diagnosed first and his ailment has required five doses of medicine a day for 14 days timed around a small amount of food). I'd like to thank S for not only figuring out how to get the cat to take the medicine but also for remembering to have the dentist fill out the kindergarten dental form.