Accident, Trip to the ER

I wrote this up about the day after it happened. It was a while ago.

A few of you are asking what happened with Ethan. Well, I’m terrible at short versions, so here’s the medium version. First of all, to put you at ease, he’s alright! Jake & I were doing a wedding, the friend of ours, my age, was sitting for us. We came home & she told us that about 20 mins ago he had jus fallen & bumped his mouth, that he cried a lot, but that he was fine. There were no signs of injury on him & he was happy as could be, so we thought nothing of it. So we got the kids ready for bed, put them down, and then after about an hour, Ethan woke up crying hard, he Never wakes up crying! So I go in & he was making sounds like he was throwing up but nothing was coming out. After a few minutes, finally just a few drops of blood came out. I’m not a big worrier, so even though I was a bit on edge at this point, I called my mom before I went straight to 911. She told me to look in his mouth & check him all over. Inside his mouth, kinda far back & toward the top, there was a scratch & 2 punctures. We decided going to the ER was the best idea. Jake thought it looked like a sore (like Diella & I have been getting in our mouths), but I thought it looked more like some kind of cut. My mom came with me to the ER so Jake could stay home with Diella (she had woken up to the commotion & was crying cuz she could sense the tension & was so worried! Poor girl!). you know how a mother sometimes plays through the worst scenarios in her mind, well I suddenly feared that maybe he swallowed something sharp! So the worst, of course, was waiting in the ER, not fully knowing WHAT had actually happened. So after waiting for entirely too long, they took his vitals, and then looked him over & said two good things. He did not need stitches, and that it looked like he didn’t swallow anything. I asked if we could still get an x-ray, cuz I just needed peace of mind that he for SURE did not swallow anything. So we got that done, and it was clear! Good news all around! So here’s how they diagnosed it. 1 cm laceration & contusion. So, punctures & a little bruising. And here’s what Actually happened. When I was in the ER, I was trying to think of what could have been sharp that punctured his throat? For some reason, I dunno why, I thought of this broken plastic piece of tube (which I kept because we were playing with it in the bath the other night, Wrong Choice on my part! I should have just thrown it out!)… but I was praying that that wasn’t what did it. So first thing this morning, I went into Diella’s room to see if I could figure out the cause. Sure enough, there was that plastic piece right by her bed. Then this morning I got a message from the sitter that said the more she thought about it, she remembered seeing him with that tube, but that it didn’t SEEM as though it was near his face when he fell, but that his back was to her, so it was possible. So this confirmed it. He had a broken piece of plastic tube in his hand when he fell, puncturing his throat! OUCH! I felt terrible (as did the sitter). But the doctor said that mouths heal quickly, so he should be feeling better in just a few days. We were just instructed to give him only soft foods for a few days & lots of water to rinse it out. She also said to keep tylenol & motrin in him for the pain. We’ve already seen that as long as we do, he does really well! So he’s tough, he’s doing fine, and we’re takin good care of him! No more leaving stuff like that out! It was a long night, but the ending could have been worse. God is faithful!