I wasn't sure whether I should tell this story in a blog, but the blog is about parenting, and this is what our family did over the weekend.
Poor baby H (aged 15 months) had an accident and bit through his tongue. After a few hours at A & E it was determined he needed stitches and so he had to go under general anaesthetic to have them. He is on the mend now and has been happily playing as you can see from the photo above (2 days after it happened).
As any mother will know, you can easily blame yourself for everything that happens to your child. He was under my care, so it was definitely my fault. But, accidents do happen, and with 3 little ones in my home I imagine I'll see my fair share of A&E.
We were taking the older 2 swimming, and so I had my 5 year old daughter and H in the changing rooms. I put H down on the seat and turned to help my daughter. I turned back to see him fall and land face first on the tiled floor. There were tears and blood, but it wasn't clear that any real damage had been done. After some dithering I let my daughter go in to her lesson, but I couldn't seem to calm down H or get the bleeding to stop. I tried to get my husband out of the pool, and he was in another lesson with our middle son, but got a bit fobbed off by the swimming teacher. After a few more minutes wandering around in a panic - looking like a crazed mum carrying a screaming, bleeding child - I decided we were off to hospital. I marched in to the pool and demanded that all members of my family get out, dry and dress as fast as possible.
We headed towards the hospital but H fell asleep almost immediately. We stopped the car and had a look in his mouth, but all we could see was a bruised lip. We decided that he didn't need medical help, but just needed some rest and cuddles, so we took him home. Over the next hour or so at home he cuddled and grizzled, but he just didn't seem to be settling. All of a sudden he tried to spit something out and I saw a big flap of loose tongue flop around! I screamed for my husband and put everyone in the car at a speed never before witnessed in our household. Nappies, shoes and coats were flung into the car rather than put onto children, and we raced to hospital.
My husband dropped me outside what we thought was A&E (at Royal Devon & Exeter for all you locals) and went off to park the car. I was at the wrong building so I ran through the rain with this crying, bleeding child and arrived at A&E in full-on crazed-Mum mode. I may have been less than courteous to the receptionist who insisted on knowing my full contact details before H could be seen. A doctor had a quick look but as she couldn't get H to open his mouth, she reassured me that the tongue heals by itself and he should be fine. The nurse who triaged him gave a similar opinion. About 2.5 hours after our arrival H was properly examined by a doctor who on prizing H's mouth open saw the terrifying flap of tongue and declared that this was going to need some stitches. He went to fetch a facial reconstruction specialist or something equally horrifying, and we were sent back to wait. I sent my husband off with the older kids to feed them dinner, and continued to wait with H.
After some long periods of waiting we learned that he would need some stitches in the tongue and that this would need to be done by general anaesthetic. Thankfully this was done during the evening and we were able to bring him home by 11pm. That whole process was pretty scary, but I felt better that something was being done to ease H's pain. He had barely eaten or drunk all day long, and had not been given any pain killers for quite a few hours.
So, now he's back at home, perky and drowsy in equal measures. He wants to get up and play, and then he wants to cuddle in my arms for a few minutes.
I am immensely grateful for the national health service that we have. Whatever its troubles, the fact that it exists, is readily available, and free to the user is amazing. We had excellent care once we were seen, and the doctors and nurses cared as much for us parents as they did H. I'm also very grateful to a dear friend who spent her Saturday night babysitting the older 2 children!
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