Thursday, February 9th, 2012

“doctor seuss?”

posted by lizzie    « 1 Comment »    tied to Brooklyn, motherhood, Oliver, the day-to-day   

Oliver only wishes we were going to see Dr. Seuss. Unfortunately, it’s just his normal pediatrician that got to see the inside of his mouth a couple of times this week. On Tuesday we decided it was time to find out if there was anything we could do about his loud sleep breathing. His tonsils seem to be crowding his airway. It turns out our best bet is a humidifier. And he may have issues with his tonsils for years, but it’s too early to get excited about a tonsilectomy. Which is fine with me. It doesn’t really annoy him, so until it does, I’m willing to live with it.

And the second trip was as unexpected as the moment the door didn’t yield to Oliver as he sped toward it as fast as he could. I was on the other side of the room and didn’t see exactly what happened, but the short story is: he ran into the door. And blood poured from his mouth. I scooped him up and ran him to the ladies room (we were at the church for institute). As more and more blood dripped out of his mouth, and then spurted all over the place (sink, walls, counter, shoes, clothes, floor), I realized I had no idea what to do. Institute was over as all the other mothers dropped everything to help me figure things out. An hour later, the doctor had given him the all-clear: his teeth were fine, it had bled enough that infection wasn’t a worry, and in two weeks time, we won’t even be able to see where the cut is.

But right now, it looks pretty awful:

And so do the clothes he was wearing at the time:

Of course, I’ve been expecting this kind of thing from Oliver for a long time. And I expect a lot more of it in the future. But I’m grateful that we have avoided stitches for at least a little bit, and that mouth wounds heal quickly.

Comments

  1. Becca says:
    February 14, 2012 at 7:17 pm

    Good grief! Those sorts of incidents terrify me! I’m glad Oliver is okay and that you made it through with (no doubt) a much calmer mind frame than I would have. Blood. Yikes.

    Happy Valentines to you all!!

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