I spent most of my weekend at medical facilities with Alex. On Saturday afternoon at 2:00 on the dot (exactly when the Baby Sprinkle I was hosting at our home was starting) Alex fell out by the pool and he seriously injured the inside of his mouth. A sibling of Alex, who shall remain nameless, (ok it was Brielle) got into a scuffle over a pool noodle. Alex went face first into the pool coping (edge of the pool). Justin was outside with all three kids in the pool when it happened. I was inside with Holly’s sisters and we had just finished setting up for the Baby Sprinkle. The four of us had just sat down at the kitchen table and within 60 seconds we hear yelling and screaming outside. I jumped up and said “uh oh, it must be serious for Justin to yell like that”. I was right. Alex was bleeding from the mouth quite seriously. Upon inspection I could see that his outer lip was cut and it looked liked the cut continued on the inside of his mouth. When I finally did see the inside of his mouth later that day I realized it was really bad. He had an inch long and quite deep laceration on the inside of his lip. His gums were completely blackened and raised above four teeth.

i took him to urgent care in his swim clothes. Although I did grab a set of clothes, some towels, and the diaper bag on the way out the door. He was screaming a lot, so we rushed out the door just as the first few women were arriving for the Baby Sprinkle.

He got to see three very nice doctors and probably every nurse working at Cook Children’s Urgent care in Southlake on Saturday. After all three doctors thoroughly examined him they decided he needed to be sent downtown to Cook Children’s ER. They released him to my care, but I had to sign a form stating I was taking him directly to the ER.

We saw another four doctors at the ER. Apparently it is difficult to decide what to do with a severe mouth wound on a toddler. In the end they decided to leave it alone to let it heal. No sutures.

The next morning it looked so much worse and it was healing open rather than closed. I took him back to the ER on Sunday morning.

After another day spent at the ER it was determined that we may need to see a plastic surgeon, but we have to wait about three weeks. They did not want to suture the wound because they assumed he would chew out the stitches before we even made it to the parking lot. Doing so would make the wound even worse off.

It is healing well on the outside of his lip. The inside is still a mess, but apparently it will be for weeks. No swimming for a while. Soft food only. The worst of it is the smell. Mouth wounds smell awful. They warned me of this at the ER and explained how awful it will look while it heals. Last night he wanted to sleep laying on me. After about 45 minutes I couldn’t handle the smell anymore (and I do have a pretty high yuck tolerance having three small kids). Poor Alex… we are praying it heals quickly and smoothly. I hope that smell goes away soon too.

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Alex and I at the ER. I thought this was a good photo to share since he has the wound hidden, so I won’t gross out any readers. ????