I was bringing my son upstairs on Sunday for a nap when it happened. He ran ahead. I was about 6 steps up when I heard him start crying. I thought, “I bet he fell down.”
I got upstairs and he was bawling with the freedom only toddlers can give to tears of pain. I pulled him into a hug and asked him if he fell down. Yup. I pulled back and went to get my tablet from my room (I usually read or write while he falls asleep). As I walked away, I noticed a streak of blood on my forearm. Oh, he must’ve cut himself. No biggie, head or teeth – both bleed profusely so even though it was a generous smear I was not worried about the extent of injury.
I get Neosporin and a bandaid. Yup, eyebrow. Head wounds really are the worst. Grab a bit of toilet paper and plop the kiddo on my lap. Begin to clean up the spot.
Oh. This is pretty long. Hard to see how deep it is, but I’m concerned enough I ask my husband to come up and help me assess. I leave the toddler sitting on the closed toilet so I can get a big bigger of a bandage, that little Pokemon band-aid isn’t going to cut it.
We got it cleaned up and discussed. The pediatrician told us after his first fall (which needed stitches) some ground rules. Face is 1/2 in to 1 inch in length and 1/4 inch deep. This one is definitely an inch, slicing right through his eyebrow (quiet the roguish look, to be honest), and might be that deep. It’s hard to tell when it’s still bleeding as much as a head wound can.
I call my mother to help me take him to urgent care. My husband had friends over watching the EVO tournament stuff and honestly, I just need someone there to hold my hand if he needs stitches. I learned last time I don’t handle it very well (I nearly passed out – much to my own chagrin).
We arrive at urgent care and the doc takes one look and says stitches. There’s a numbing agent applied and we wait in the waiting room. After 20 minutes we’re taken to the “laceration room” (they have a dedicated room for it!) and he’s given “loopy juice.”
Wooo, it made him loopy. That part was really quite fun. He literally was feeling the sheet and giggling. You see people high in movies behaving like that. It was fun to watch.
I can’t tell you much about the stitching process, I looked away. They wrapped him up in a velcro’d blanket to hold him still. Five stitches.
Home again with some instructions. Keep it clean. Keep it out of the sun (makes scarring worse). Don’t let him pick at the stitches (duh) – they can’t re-do it, so really – don’t.
He slept in the parent-bed Sunday night so we could make sure he didn’t pick at the stitches. Honestly, he was doing great at not messing with it. We sent him off with pictures for his first-day of Pre-K.
When he got home… there were no stitches. My stomach twisted. Literally, writing this again, my stomach turns and roils with a visceral reaction. A little bit of rage. A little bit of worry. A little bit of fear.
Anger that daycare failed us (not their norm, but it was the “first day of school” and a lot was going on). Angry at myself for sending him to school. If I had kept an eye on him for the entire first 24 hours, would it have made a difference? I’ll never know. Worry about the pain he might have felt when they came out. Worry he picked them out. Fear about the scarring. Fear at the open-wound dangers we are now going to be contending with.
What do we do now?
So I kept him home from school Tuesday. Called the pediatrician as soon as they opened and they basically said “you could try to go back to urgent care?” but since they told us that new stitches aren’t an option I don’t see how much they can really do… %$@^&*.
Honestly, scarring is probably the least of my worries/fears. It looks relatively dashing. He’ll be ok. He will. I might not be. I might be a nervous wreck imagining pus and infection and losing his eye… I never said it was reasonable or logical concern.
Dream by Day 