Accidents Do Happen

We had just returned from Disney World.  The boys were planning on squeezing out every second of their last couple of weeks of summer.  Jason had just came home from work.  I was on the last 5 minutes of dinner.  I decided to put Hailey in the booster seat instead of her highchair.  I sat her in it because she was whining in the kitchen.  I turned to stir my mushroom sauce and then I heard the thunk followed by the blood curdling scream.  Hailey had fallen out of the booster.  The boys were freaking out.  I scooped her up and sat on the floor.  There was blood everywhere.  Hailey was so upset that she was borderline hyper-ventilating.  She was scared and she was hurt.  Jason took over with Hailey.  He handles emergencies and blood much calmer than I do.  I called the neighbors to take the boys and we headed to the urgent care.  Children's hospital has an urgent care about 10 minutes from the house.

Once we got there, they said there was about a 45 minute wait.  I asked if a nurse could come look quickly because there was just so much blood and it wasn't stopping.  They called us back less than 5 minutes later.  The nurse came in and about 5 minutes later the doctor came in.  While waiting, Jason and I finally discovered the cause of the bleeding.  Hailey had bit her tongue...about 2/3 of the way across.  I almost gagged and had to look away.  The doctor explained that most of the time they do not repair these types of cuts on tongues.  It hadn't broken the boundaries, but she wanted to verify with the dental clinic at Children's downtown.  She came back about 10 minutes later and said that they wanted us to go downtown for stitches.  They would call ahead and we wouldn't have to wait since they were sending us there.

We ran home to reassure the boys that Hailey was okay and to make sure our wonderful neighbors could keep the boys overnight.  We changed Hailey out of her blood covered clothes, grabbed phone chargers and headed downtown.  The ER was quiet...who knew Mondays were quiet in the ER.  We were back in a room in about 5 minutes.  I think about 15 people came and went, each asking the same questions.  The doctor walked in and asked us about sedation..  Had Hailey ever been sedated...yes.  What drug did they use?  What?  My look must have said it all.  I told her the type of sedation and that I wasn't sure what was used.  Didn't they have that on record?  Couldn't they find out from cardiology?  The doctor then continued by listing 3 or 4 drugs that it could possibly be, stating how critical it is sedating children with Ds (then why on earth are you relying on my memory?!)  At that point, I am getting annoyed with the ER doctor.  She then decided to look in Hailey's mouth.  The doctor looked up and said, "We aren't doing anything to this.  The perimeter is still in tact.  Her teeth did go all the way through at one point, but not enough."   That is when the color on my husband's face and I got sick to my stomach.  Then why are we here?  She continued with all the reasons why they weren't going to stitch her tongue and then off the cuff said, "We can have dental look at it, but they are going to say the same thing."  I explained that dental is who requested we come in for stitches and she just shook her head like it was wrong or we were told something incorrect.  My husband voiced his concerns for the inconsistencies and for Hailey's mouth.  He was getting upset so I just said, "Yes, please, we want dental to look".  More waiting.........

The resident from dental came in.  You know sometimes how you can be annoyed by a person you don't know for no reason at all?  I was annoyed with the resident when she walked in...no reason...she hadn't even said anything, but I didn't want to deal with her but at midnight...that is all I get.  She agreed with the other doctor.  No stitches.  I'm in tears at this point because we have been dealing with this for 6 hours and they are doing nothing.  Why have we been waiting here, why did we get sent downtown for nothing, why is no one on the same page?  The ER doctor came back and said they were releasing Hailey.  We would get a prescription for a mouth rinse...use it 3 times daily.  We should follow up with the dental clinic in a week.  Hailey had cried off and on all evening so I asked the doctor if we could have something for Hailey's pain so she could at least sleep.  She looked at me perplexed, "You didn't give her tylenol?"  I almost came out of my chair...NO, I didn't.  I told you that, every nurse, both doctors and everyone at the urgent care!!!!!!!!!!!!  "Oh, yes, she does probably need something".  That doctor could not walk out of my sight fast enough.

We got home around 2 a.m......8 hours after it all began...we were home.  Luckily Hailey fell asleep on the way home and we put her to bed.  I set an alarm every two hours that night to check on her.  Part of it worry....part of it guilt.  She was fine and slept through the night.  Then the rest of the journey began.  The joys of withholding food from my nonstop eater and become a human pillow for the next three days.

This is one week post accident.  It looks SO much better here than initially (I couldn't bring myself to take a pic earlier).

This is 4 weeks later.  There is still a line, but thank God that it is almost healed and doesn't seem to be affecting speech or eating!

Thankfully...her tongue looks much better.  You can still see a faint line, but thank God it healed okay and it only slowed her down for a few days.  Mom still feels guilty every time she sees it!