Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later! Catherine slipped when getting out of the bath and bit a huge hole in the crease of her mouth. We got the bleeding to stop and debated back and forth about the merits of having her seen by a doctor. But after asking a family friend (who is a physician) and reading a little online, we learned that, if a wound needs stitches, waiting really isn't an option. After 12ish hours, it gets to be too late to put them in. Since we were worried about scarring and her ability to eat, we opted to be safe rather than sorry. She was in a fair amount of pain, but after an hour or so had passed and we explained what we were going to be doing, she hopped right in the car (at 8:30 at night), declaring "This is gonna be great!" Maybe I did too good a job, trying to prepare her for the experience so she wouldn't be afraid. Ha!
I have a picture of the actual wound, but in the name of discretion, I'll leave that one alone on my phone. The cut was on the right side and can't actually be seen in either of these pictures. It was pretty nasty. And her face wasn't swollen yet in these pictures, but was bruised and swollen for about a week afterwards. The doctor said that the mouth would heal very quickly (and was right!) and that any scarring would actually be worse if they put a stitch in that part of the mouth. So no stitches were needed and we were home by 10:30. We were very thankful!
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| Elmo at 9:00 at night? She looks pretty happy, considering! |
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| One way to get her to put ice on it? Give her a popsicle. I think she thought the ER was pretty great... |
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