I feel like singing to the tune..."All I want for Christmas is a big, fat lip...."
*sigh*...
So, last year, a couple weeks before Christmas, Brenna broke her arm. This year, she wanted to do something equally as exciting and painful, so she decided to bite through her lip.
Now, let me explain. To say she has a 'busted lip' would be putting it mildly. Its pretty much a half inch gash on the inside of her lip (thankfully, it's on the inside!) that left a flap of tissue about half a dime size (or maybe a little more?) hanging off. I promise, when I describe this, I am trying to be as polite and non-gross as I can yet still giving a description. I don't want to intentionally gross anyone out, I promise.
Anyway, so Tuesday morning, Brad was off, we decorated gingerbread houses, and then we were planning to take the girls to see Tangled...finally! However, that plan went by the wayside, when the girls decided to go for a ride on our big rocker recliner. Brenna was standing up on it, leaning on the back of the chair with her tummy to the back, while Brooke rocked her back and forth... Now, you may question my parenting skills here, but if you only KNEW how many times I repeated the phrase..."chairs are for sitting, not standing!"...or ..."don't rock that chair that hard!"...you would know this was my children going against everything I tell them to do. And me not being fast enough on the uptake I suppose. Anyway, so sure enough, they rock it too hard and the chair tips over, falling on its back...Brenna falling with it. Luckily (we think?) she didn't hit her head (though we're still not exactly sure on that..she could've hit the wall?), but landed face forward and apparently (best we can judge) her top jaw/teeth clamped down on her lower lip, causing her to quite literally bite through her lip.
We didn't notice it right away...we just saw blood and thought she (once again) had a relatively simple busted lip. 'Cause yea, that happens here... a lot. We take her to the bathroom, check her teeth and her head and everything appears ok. She cries for a bit, then is relatively ok. I take her back into the living room and am cuddling, yet preaching to both of them about the dangers of 1)standing up in a chair and 2) rocking that chair too much. When I actually look and peel back her bottom lip and FREAK OUT! Part of her lip was hanging off, I could see what I thought was down to her gum through the hole/gash in her bottom lip. I look at Brad (oh, thankfully he was off work and there!) and panicky, tell him to look. He sees the look of horror and fear in my face and looks inside her lip and immediately says, 'um yea.. Brooke, get your shoes on!'
I knew knew knew with all my sense that she was going to be getting stitches. I knew lips healed well and fast and bled a lot and all that good stuff...but this was TOO much of a gash. I knew it. So we went around the corner from our house to our PCP, who is barely able to get us in (grrr! Still mad at the front desk lady!). Brad is carrying Brenna, who is caked in blood, from her hair to her face, to her shirt, to Brad's shirt! It was everywhere. We really wanted to avoid the ER thinking the wait would be long..it would be expensive..and the outcome would be the same.
We get in to see a dr (not our normal one) who cleans it up and proceeds to tell us that they really don't do stitches in the mouth at all...unless its on the outside. That it would heal ok, etc etc... Hmm. Ok. Good to hear right? We're relieved. And I'm feeling kinda dumb. I worry a lot, but I don't panic unless I know its bad. Hmm.
So we go home, we let her have popsicles and basically whatever she wants. Then we put her down for a nap at 1p. And she sleeps...and sleeps..and sleeps.... till 5:00p!! THAT is strange. And when I go to wake her up (finally) she is starting to cry and panic herself because she apparently got a nosebleed and there was (again) blood everywhere...on her clothes, her hair, her sheets, down to the mattress! And she's freaking out. We calmly clean her up, I wash sheets and clean the bed, etc. The rest of the day she is extremely grumpy, irritable, fussy, and just downright inconsolable. Now, I know what you are thinking. Um, she just gashed her lip open and you expect her to be happy? Well, no. But this is the same kid that cried for 5 minutes when she broke her arm. Generally pain doesn't have this effect on her.
The next day (yesterday), Brad was off again and after looking at her lip when she wakes up, he decides he wants a second opinion. Brad does. The non-worrier, everything-will-be-ok kinda guy. By the second day, it began to look worse. It was really puffy, meaty looking and oozing. She wasn't eating hardly anything and was still very irritable..and that's putting it mildly (we have listened to her screaming and crying for hours on end because her sock was crooked). We were also a teeny bit concerned that maybe she did in fact hit her head (causing the nosebleed, the sleepiness, and the grumpiness) too. So we go up to our old pediatrician's office, who takes one look at her and says, 'yea, typically we don't do stitches in the mouth....but, that's a bad one. She probably needed a stitch or two to hold it together. But, um...its too late for that now.' Yea, always nice to hear. Your child is ruined. (that's what I hear...:P )
So she proceeds to tell us that we'll just have to wait and see how it heals. If it doesn't grow back together or if there is a "mound" left of scar tissue afterwards or if its bothersome (to her or to us), we will have to go to an oral surgeon or plastic surgeon to have it cut off later and stitched back together. Great. Nice.
*sigh*
And she did check her over and there was no kind of head injury and she thinks that the nosebleed and sleepiness were all sheer coincidence or that due to dry nose (thanks weather!) the jarring from the fall could've caused the nosebleed a little easier.
So, that's where we are. 2 days before Christmas... a big fat lip... not eating (much)... and extremely uncomfortable/irritable...and generally impossible to deal with.
That's the only picture I'll post. This was shortly after it happened and we got back home from the 1st doctor visit (before it really got swollen) and again, luckily, its on the inside so you can't see anything from the outside. Or...maybe I should say, you couldn't..at the time. Now, two days later, her lip sticks out three times its size and she can't (or won't?) really even close her mouth because of the swelling. I ran one errand this morning and got a few stares from people when they noticed.
I hope it gets better in the next day or two. I really really do. I really want her to feel better and to be like her old jolly self again. Especially in time to enjoy Christmas. For my sanity if nothing else. ;)
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