Friday, April 10

OMG! My poor baby!!

Oh my poor baby. Well, I say baby, she's 3, but she's my baby.

She was playing next door with the two girls on the trampoline. I'd shouted over the fence and given her a 5 minutes to coming in warning. I wish to god I'd fetched her in straight away, but I always give her a 5 minutes warning to save temper tantrums so that when I do go to get her she's already forewarned it's almost time to come in. It works well and no tantrums. I wish this time that I didn't do it.

A couple of minutes after the 5 minute warning I was just washing the dishes and I heard her cry, then say I want my mummy. I headed to the front door to go get her when my neighbour rushed in carrying Isabelle with blood pouring, I mean pumping, from her mouth! I couldn't find out straight away what she'd done. Apparently she'd been getting off the trampoline because the big boys were on it and she told me later that there were too many people on the trampoline and she didn't like it. She fell as she tried to get off and smacked her mouth on the top of a concrete post.

The damage? I was mortified to see that she'd knocked her front tooth right out and the next one along is pushed to a funny angle. She has a huge cut on her top lip, but her gums are a right mess, she's really bashed them up. I was in two minds whether to take her to A&E or not, but the bleeding stopped, so I thought I'd just keep my eye on it. This was 7.30pm. We gave her some calpol and she drank some water. It took an hour and half to get her to stop crying and calm down properly. It had really shaken her up, but looking at the state of her mouth, I'm not surprised.

I managed to get her into the dentist's the next morning and although he said it's a mess, he's not unduly worried. He said it's a clean wound and it's clotted nicely. We're not sure what will happen with the little tooth that's at a funny angle. It's a case of wait and see. The dentist was fantastic! I can't sing his praises enough. He got Isabelle to show him in her mouth rather than him poking around, and all he did was use his mirror to get a good luck. He didn't want to frighten her at all. He was excellent! He told me signs to watch for and keep an eye out for infection. He also told me to ring him any time I have any worries or concerns and he'd see her right away. We go back in a month once it's healed and he's going to take an x-ray to see if there's any internal damage. Obviously we can't do anything about the missing tooth. It's a case of wait for her big teeth to start growing. He did seem quite optimistic that everything will be ok.

But my poor baby. I felt so bad for her.

The strange thing is how we as mothers, have the ability to deal with something like your child pumping blood and keep calm and deal with it. It wasn't until about 10pm when she was tucked up in bed sleeping that it really hit me. I felt so sick and I just broke down in tears. I ended up going to bed at 10.15 because I just couldn't stay up any longer. I kept thinking about it and the only way I could deal with it was by going to sleep and shutting it out. It was also a very long night. She ended up in bed with me, waking every 4 hours crying. I just kept giving he calpol and soothing her off to sleep again.

Right now, she's fine. She has a fat lip but her gums are looking a bit better this morning, even though they are split right up to where her lip joins them.

Thankfully she's doing ok, and it could have been worse.. it could have been her head!

My poor baby :(