Another Busted Mouth

I'm going to attempt this again. Last time I sat down to blog the door bell rang and my husband could have been easily mistaken for a patient belonging in the "lost" ward.

****Warning don't proceed if you get queasy easily****

Yesterday, we filed taxes. I think this is the first in about four or five years that he was around to do it with me. I credit him for getting it done so soon and being squared away. If it were up to me as it has been in the past, April 1st I would start printing off the necessary doc's. While we were signing papers Bear decided to dive off a chair into the carpet covered concrete, taking the chair with him. I saw blood in the mouth and took a deep breath. Having a daughter known for busting her own teeth out, I repeated in my head "oral injury=lots of blood". I swooped him up and noticed the lovely red drainage rapidly escaping both nostrils as well. With the gut serious voice I shouted "Max". We rushed him to the bathroom since by that time my shirt (and bra)already looked like I killed something, and inspected his teeth. We saw a little gash in the lip and I kept saying "oral injury=lots of blood". Since the boy refused to nap earlier, he was tired by now but insisted I held him covered in blood. As he fell asleep (not freaked out because it wasn't a head injury) we inspected his mouth closer and saw not only the lip laceration but a nice gash separating the top lip from the gums (not just the little string part but about 3/4 inch gash literally removing his lip). Lovely! We debated driving about 20 minutes to the Naval Hospital or to take him to the local one about 5 min away. Since the bleeding slowed down we headed off to Portsmouth Naval.

Having been around Military treatment facilities, I'm aware of how the main hospital ER wait can be horrific. After spending up to 18 hours in Balboa's (Naval Medical Center San Diego) ER I have figured out blood gets us in quicker...so I didn't change my shirt. Gross I know but at that point I didn't care. I was astonished when Portsmouth triage us and said we were on the "fast track". The what? "You'll be seen in less then an hour." And we were! Balboa has labeling and maps on every corner, so you could figure out where your supposed to be from that location, unlike crazy Portsmouth....but Portsmouth has got ER figured out! Drove there, in, examined, discharged, pharmacy, and out all in less then 3 hours.

It would have been more traumatic to sedate him and stitch (which it could have used) then to watch what kind of foods he eats and allow his body to heal itself. The Dr's agreed to avoid stitches since young ones have a rapid healing rate and breast milk will speed his healing process.

Seriously, by the time he gets married he'll be off mine and onto someone elses. *sigh*