Our First Summer Injury
Posted by leisa on July 19, 2008
It is difficult to believe, but school is just 5 weeks away! More difficult to believe is our first minor/major injury happened this week. As any parent of an ADHD child can tell you, injuries are just part of the territory. My hyperactive son is always getting bruised, cut, scraped, or banged up. It is just a part of who he is.
Last summer he ran into a bird bath at my parent’s house and got 6 staples in his head. This time he almost knocked his front tooth out. He was building a ramp of some sort and it fell and then he fell into the top part of the ramp. I was inside the house doing the dishes after dinner when all of a sudden he bursts into the kitchen, screaming and crying, blood dripping everywhere!
I could feel my blood pressure rise and panic beginning to set in. The one thing that truly scares me the most about being in the country is being so far from emergency medical help. In the city, you are 5 – 10 minutes away from an emergency facility with professionals who can help you; in the country, it’s 30 – 40 minutes.
However, what I find interesting is that somewhere inside me is a general who is very calm during the initial panic of an injury. Inside, I was TENSE wondering just what had happened, why was there so much blood, and how was I going to explain to him that he did need to see a doctor knowing how much he hated the staples last year.
My thoughts were so quick that I barely had time to panic! I calmly told him that he needed to calm down and let me see what had happened. He did, but not without saying “The doctor can’t put staples in your mouth can he?” I told him that he needed to be calm, let me look, and we were going to put ice on it, then we would see if he needed to go to the doctor.
Looking at his mouth, I got that queasy feeling that maybe we were headed to the hospital, but I wasn’t sure if they could do anything since it looked like little cuts on either side of his tooth. It definitely looked like it HURT a lot!! And a little harder hit, that tooth could have been gone!
I ended up not taking him to the doctor after conferring with his dad. (Who thinks that I baby him too much anyway?) It was late and the bleeding stopped relatively quickly. I figured that a dentist would most likely take hours to locate and even more time to come in to see him, so we would wait until morning to see how he did through the night.
Everything turned out OK. The tooth isn’t loose and is healing quite nicely. He was very lucky this time.
As his mother, I know that injuries are part of the mix, but I wish he could try and be a little more careful. As a coach, I know that he is driven by motor and has no brakes. So I can remind him about the staples when I see him getting over zealous and sometimes it works, but sometimes he keeps on going!
Note to self: Update first aid kit!
Namaste!
summer Injury
