A Stitch in Time

Yesterday evening, Bryce and I were cuddling and chatting on the rocking chair trying to put a happier ending on a frustrating day.  When a pot of boiling water called me to the kitchen, I set him down and he bounced off to play with his beloved car hauler.  

Not one minute later a heard a thump, then a Scream.  You know, the kind of Scream that stops a mom's heart and clearly communicates, "something is seriously wrong and there's probably blood."  

And blood there was.  Lots of it.  I could tell he'd hit his mouth, but it took a while to figure out where the actual wound was.  Were teeth missing? Did he bite through his lip?

Eventually we determined all his teeth were intact, and he hadn't (quite) cut all the way through the skin just under his lip, but I wasn't sure if he needed stitches or not.

Enter the Best Home Teacher in the World.

Our wonderful home teacher just happens to be an Endodontist.  I called to ask if he would stop by to let us know if he thought we needed to take Bryce in to get stitches.  "Sure," he replied, "I'm on my way home from work, I'll be there in a half hour."

While we waited, Bryce sat on my lap whimpering in pain, bravely holding a washcloth with ice on his mouth.  To distract him, I told him a story about when I cut my finger and had to have stitches (okay, in retrospect maybe that wasn't the best story to choose to distract him, but it was the first thing that came to mind).  When I finished, he whimpered again and asked for another story.  "Do you want a happy story this time," I asked.  "No," he whispered, "one about getting hurt."

So I told him about cutting my forehead open doing somersaults when I was his age, and about my little brother Daniel getting his finger bit by our parrot, and (by special request from Aubree) about my little sisters Katie and Lauren driving a truck into a tree when they were 6 and 3.  Great entertainment.

By the time our home teacher arrived, the bleeding had mostly stopped and the swelling had subsided and I was hopeful that he wouldn't need stitches after all.  

The Expert thought otherwise.  "That's deep," he determined, "he could definitely use a couple stitches." Then he laid out our options.  1. Do nothing (not advised). 2. Take him to the ER or Insta-care where they'll probably wrap him to a papoose board to hold him down to do the stitches. 3.  Go to our home teacher's office where he would sedate Bryce and do the stitches himself.

Seriously?!?  Didn't I say he was the Best Home Teacher in the World?!

A few hours later (had to wait till it had been 6 hours since Bryce had eaten) he came by with another Endodontist in the ward (his partner) and picked up Mark and Bryce and they went to his office and Bryce got 6 stitches.  Through the whole ordeal, Bryce was so calm and brave.  

When he got home he was half-loopy and yet, strangely lucid.  He couldn't keep his eyes open, but asked, "can I have dinner, please."  He could only handle applesauce and yogurt and had to be fed carefully since his mouth was numb (which was confusing for him).  At one point, Mark remarked, "you won't remember any of this tomorrow." Bryce immediately sat up, opened his eyes completely and said resolutely, "I WILL!"  

And, impressively, this morning he remembered many details and he's largely back to his normal self.

Hurrah for amazing and skilled Home Teachers who go above and beyond the call of duty, and Hurrah for little boys who heal quickly.

P.S. I think what happened is that Bryce was pushing his car hauler and it stopped and he kept going, which is a fairly common occurrence, only this time his face got the raw end of the deal.