Bren in Stitches

In my last post, I promised y'all some fun stories and photos. This post contains neither! In fact, most of these photos are straight-up gross, but someday Bren may want to read about this incident.

Last Thursday, Chris had an appointment with his chiropractor at 5:00pm, and I had one with my chiropractor at 5:45pm. We actually go to the same clinic, but we see different doctors. So, I loaded up the kids and met him at the chiropractor's office at 5:30. He took the kiddos after his appointment, and I went in for my appointment. 

We had been really busy last week preparing to go out-of-town, and the kids had been asking (begging, really) to go to the splash pad all week. We had been one time earlier in the week, but I told Chris that he should just swing by the splash pad on the way home and let them play. They were in shorts and t-shirts, but that didn't matter to us. I knew they'd only want to play for about 45ish minutes, so I thought that by the time they got home, I'd be getting home too and we could have dinner. 

I had a great appointment and left my chiropractor's office at about 6:15. I checked my phone when I got in the car and saw I had a voicemail from Chris. It said something like, "Call me ASAP. Bren fell and I think he needs stitches. We're at Urgent Care." NOT words a Momma wants to hear!!!

I called Chris immediately and clarified where they were, then drove straight over there. I was pretty panicked feeling. I didn't know what to expect when I got there. I thought for some reason he had gashed his head, so I was imagining lots of blood and a huge gash, and I don't do blood well. AT ALL. My knees kept feeling weak just thinking about it! 

When I walked in Urgent Care, Bren had a wadded up napkin against his cheek/mouth, and there wasn't really any visible blood. Thankfully, Chris had changed both Brianna and Brenson's clothes (since they were wet from being at the splash pad) when he got to Urgent Care or I would have been A LOT more freaked out. His wet clothes had a ton of blood on them, but I didn't see that until later. I did know that there had been some blood though, because Chris had blood on his pants and Bren had blood on his hands and under his fingernails (yuck!). 

Our splash pad has large, decorative rocks all around its perimeter. I guess that Chris was sitting on one of the rocks while the kids were playing. Brianna and Brenson both started running toward him at the same time from different directions, crashed into each other, and Brenson fell into one of the rocks banging his cheek and splitting his lip open. So, thankfully, there was no gash in his head.

Bren was whimpering but not really crying, so I immediately felt better. In fact, it didn't look that bad to me at all, and I kind of wondered if we needed to be at Urgent Care. However, I didn't look closely, and Chris said his lip was split wide open. 

We were called back quickly, and Bren kind of melted down. He didn't want to be touched by the nurses AT ALL. In fact, a nurse came in to clean his wound, and he freaked out so much that she just decided to wait until the doctor came in. We ended up waiting about 20 minutes before the doctor came in and that worked out perfectly. It gave Bren a chance to settle down and warm up to his surroundings a bit (he is our slow-to-warm child). 

Waiting for the doctor to come in . . . see how his lip doesn't really look bad at all?

It did look much worse up close, but I wasn't looking closely :-). Poor little guy was breaking my heart with the tears.

When the doctor came in, she determined that he would need a few stitches. She initially thought he'd need about 3, but he ended up with 5! As soon as we laid him down on the bed, Bren melted down BIG TIME. Poor guy was scared to death! We are very honest with our kiddos, so we told him that he was getting stitches and that it would hurt for a minute (just the numbing shot hurt . . . the stitches probably didn't). One nurse held Bren's head, one held his feet, and Chris and I each held an arm while the doctor stitched. It was pretty horrible for me, honesty. It was SO HARD watching him scream and cry, and at one point he looked me right in the eyes and said, "Momma!" with this pleading look. Ugh. BUT, I did pretty well being strong for him. I did get light-headed at one point and had to grab a chair, but I normally have SUCH a weak stomach that I was happy I didn't pass out!

While all this was going on, Brianna was being a great big sister and just sitting patiently. She really wanted to watch the doctor stitch, but I told her to not watch. I didn't want to scare her or freak her out. We didn't need two kids in tears! She did so great though, and I'm thankful for a child that can be trusted to obey and sit patiently.

When it was all said and done, Bren ended up with 3 stitches on the outside of his lip and 2 stitches on the inside. The tears ended very quickly after the doctor left the room, and he was soon acting normal.

His cheek and lip was certainly swollen, but he perked up really quickly after we got back home. It took me, on the other hand, ALL evening to settle down!

 I know this is a really gross photo, but you can see the stitches really well. Chris took this not long after we got home from Urgent Care.

We gave him tylenol for the pain on a four hour schedule all night long, so he slept his normal 12 solid hours.  His cheek and lip were pretty swollen the next day, but he acted completely fine. He didn't mess with the stitches or act bothered by them at all.

The next photos were taken the following Sunday . . . 3 days after the incident. All the swelling had gone down and the bruising was almost completely gone!

Another weird photo, but see how great the stitches look? He should get them out in a few days (the ones on the inside of his lip are disolveable, but the 3 one the outside have to be removed), and I'm hoping there will be no scar or anything!

I'm sooooo sad that my baby has had stitches, but very thankful that it was nothing serious! It's kind of funny that Chris and I were both surprised that Brianna was not our first child to get stitches. She such a wild woman that we figured she would have had them by now . . . But nope! I'm certainly not asking for anything, though! I sincerely hope that we don't have to go through another experience like this for a long, long time.