Boys=Stitches

On Saturday I picked up my official "Mother of Boys" membership card.

The kids and I went camping with my brother Don and his wife Lora and kids at the Heber Valley Camp. It was a totally sweet place with 3 cabins that slept 16 people each in bunk beds. The camp is owned by the church and used for Girls Camp during the week in the summer, but families can camp there on Friday nights.

You noticed I said bunk beds, right?

You know where this is going...

As we were folding up all our bedding to pack up the car, Mack fell off one of the bunk bed ladders. He'd begged me to climb up and play with Amelia, so I helped him up and figured the safety bar (as shown here with Rachel & Faith) would be enough to corral him.

I should have known better. Mack decided he was big enough to climb down on his own but he didn't make it past the second rung. I saw him fall straight down to the concrete and it looked like he broke the fall with his hand or arm, but it turns out he broke the fall with his mouth. I picked him up to find his mouth bleeding, which hasn't been too unusual in the last couple of months, but this was a LOT more blood than the usual bonk produces. I could see that one of his front teeth was twisted crooked. After soaking up the blood with a tissue a few times, I knew an ER visit was going to be necessary.

Is it so wrong that I thought, "Thanks goodness we have great new insurance and I actually have the ID card with me"?

After giving Mack a dose of ibuprofen, I asked Don to give him a priesthood blessing. Then Don and Rachel packed up my car in a frenzy and we drove off to the Heber Valley Medical Center. Mack fell asleep on the way, but continued to bleed. Lily was like, "Mama! How can you take a picture of that?"!

Mack continued to sleep while we waited for the doctor and I decided it must not be too bad since he was busy sucking on his binky.

Which resulted in a gruesome binky print.

Upon examination the doctor found about a half inch split under the lip that would require stitches.

I'd like to say I'm posting these pictures just so Dan can see them in Houston, but we all know I love gnarly pictures and don't mind sharing them on the blog. I did try to be nice, though, and make them a little smaller for the squeamish among you. Feel free to click and enlarge if you like all the gory details. :)

The doctor gave Mack a sedative called ketamine. It's not supposed to completely knock you out, just make you kind of oblivious to what's happening. Mack didn't respond too well to the drug; he got plenty sleepy, but once the doc started messing with his mouth he started screaming. They ended up just putting a local anesthetic on the wound and we all held him down while the doctor sewed. He got four stitches, two under his lip and two where the gum ripped away from his tooth.

He was a real trooper. As soon as the stitches were in I snuggled him and he was just fine. Then he got even better when he discovered a leftover chocolate shake that Aunt Lora had taken the girls to get.

Amazingly, Mack was back to normal that evening, like nothing ever happened. He tried to bite into an apple (which I immediately grabbed out of his hands) and he slept through the whole night with just one midnight dose of ibuprofen.

I took him to a dentist on Monday to make sure there were no problems with his teeth. The dentist said there's a small chance the front tooth that's twisted may fall out, but we'll just have to watch and see. The root of the baby tooth may have caused some damage on the permanent tooth which would result in a yellow spot on the permanent tooth, but there's nothing that can be done about it.

It's been four days since the accident and aside from a fat lip, you would never know it happened.

                            

Mack is right back to his rowdy little boy self.

 

And I'm busy adding a notch to my "Mother of Boys" belt.