Most parents know that it is only a matter of time before they have to deal with the first “big” injury with their kids. I have friends with kids who have had broken bones, needed stitches, fallen and bitten through their lip, and/or had surgeries, but we have been lucky so far and have barely even encountered blood. Emily is such a cautious little girl. But, we aren’t blind to the fact that kids fall down, they get hurt. All you can do is hope that when the time comes, the damage is as minor as possible.
I had just gotten home from a run on Thursday morning, and Erik had just left to go play hockey with his dad when I received a call from Emily’s daycare. Whenever I see an incoming call from Tutor Time I know something has happened before I answer the phone – either Emily got hurt (usually just a skinned knee or something minor) or she is sick. Either way, they always start the conversation with, “Everything is fine, but…”. This time I didn’t hear the “Everything is fine, but” intro, so I knew something big must have happened.
On Thursdays in the summer, daycare has “water day”, where the kids run through sprinklers and play on water tables. Emily was running through sprinklers in the grass, slipped, and hit her mouth on another child’s head. She was bleeding from the gums and her teeth “seemed a little loose”. This is all I knew at the time. So, I called the dentist to let them know we were going to be coming in, packed up Charlotte and headed to daycare to pick up Emily. I was still in my sweaty running clothes and I was starving. Erik was in the middle of a hockey game, so I braced myself for the fact that no matter what I am walking into, I will be doing it by myself.
I got to daycare and could immediately hear Emily crying from the entrance. After signing all of the paperwork (injury report, insurance information, etc.) I went into her room to find her sobbing in pain on the daycare director’s lap. I picked her up, got her as calmed down as possible and headed right to the dentist.
We were there for not more than 10 minutes before we were told that her two front teeth were going to have to be removed. This broke my heart. Emily has the biggest, beaming smile, so the idea of that beaming smile not including her two front teeth was devastating. Not to mention the fact that Emily was already traumatized, and part of the extraction process would be us holding her down since they do not put them under for the procedure. The entire process took about 5 minutes, and just like that, my 3-year-old baby girl was missing her two front teeth!
She looked so sad the entire evening after the dentist! =(
We went home and laid low for the evening. Emily spent the entire day in pain, not wanting to eat, drink, take medicine, or let anything near her mouth. We tried everything, but nothing took. We had hopes of her waking up the next morning feeling a bit better and starting fresh. Because we also have a 4-week-old, Erik slept in our room with Charlotte and was going to take all the overnight bottles, and I slept in the spare room upstairs with Emily. We got a really poor night’s sleep, including three episodes of vomiting. Because of this, we made an appointment with her pediatrician to get her evaluated for a concussion.
The pediatrician ran a few tests and ultimately told us to head over to the ER so she could get some fluids and sugars in her system since her blood sugars were really low, she was very dehydrated, and she didn’t like how dazed she looked so she thought she should be evaluated further for head trauma. We drove right to the ER at Mercy Hospital.
We called my sister to have her come pick up Charlotte so that we could give full attention to Emily. The triage nurse admitted us to the hospital for an overnight stay. Emily also had a CT scan to make sure there wasn’t any bleeding or fractures in her head, which there were not, thankfully. After receiving three bags of fluids, a bag of sugar-water, some pain medication and some anti-nausea medication, Emily woke up in the morning and ate a popsicle. This was the first thing she ate in 48 hours, so this was such a relief! We ordered her breakfast and I have honestly NEVER seen her eat so fast! She is the slowest eater on the planet, and she took down a blueberry muffin, pancake, eggs and milk in about 5 minutes. It was so funny, but also so sad at the same time because she was obviously very hungry. After getting food into her belly, she started coming back to her old self: funny, sweet, playful, imaginative. She was actually moving around so much that we had to call the nurse to see if they could remove the IV, as it was extremely difficult to chase her around with the IV tower close behind.
We are now four days post-accident and finally starting to get back to our normal routine and life. We just got home from her follow-up appointment with the pediatrician and received the “all clear”. What a crazy, emotional, stressful, rollercoaster of a weekend! Not exactly the way we intended on closing out summer, but thankful that everything is just fine in the end!
Emily might have a little bit different of a smile now, but it is just as adorable as it used to be! All kids lose their teeth, sorry our kid is just advanced! =)
