Well, I knew that with our son Rhett a trip to the ER was imminent I was just unsure about why and when. That question was answered on Monday evening. It's easy to take for granted how the completely normal can turn in a second to tragedy and pain. Like every other evening Rhett was jogging around the house with something in his mouth. Much to my dismay this time it was a metal hanger. No, I do not usually let my child run around the house chewing on a metal hanger but the accident occured before I was aware of his object-of-the-minute. All I heard while cleaning the kitchen was a fall and a cry. I ran into the living room to see him stand up with a hanger in his hand. I really didn't think anything of it and just assumed that he probably scraped his lip or mouth a little. That is until I saw a fountain of blood oozing from his mouth. I hurriedly grabbed a wet towel and proceeded to clean up his mouth. I saw a little scrape on the inside of his cheek but probed further and discovered that he had punctured a hole in the back of his throat. It was probably half an inch long and looked terrible. Rhett however seemed to be uninterested in the recovery process and decided that he was just fine to continue on his normal tirad around the house. I immediately called Jeremy and told him to come home. In the meantime I called a nurse who told me to take him into the ER. I kinda freaked out a little bit - thinking surgery, a overnight stay in the hospital, yikes! And Jeremy didn't even want to bring him in at all. However, even if it was only for my piece of mind it was going to be worth the trip to swine city to discover the fate of my son's throat. Well, to make a long story short we arrived at the ER around 6:00 pm, sat in the waiting room with all of the feverish fellows for about 30 min. then were transported into a room to await the doctor. He didn't show up until 8:00 pm. By this time Rhett is extremely hungry (the nurse on the phone told me not to feed him or give him anything to drink until the Dr. sees him) and tired. Once the Dr. arrives he takes his handy dandy tongue dispenser and his tiny little flashlight and proceeds to glance for about 2 seconds into Rhett's mouth. All to this conclusion - "Mouth wounds tend to heal fairly quickly and all by themselves, However they often get infected so I'm going to prescribe you some antibiotics for any infection that he may get." I have to say that my reaction to this news was at first one of extreme relief and then of extreme frustration in realizing that Quick Care could have told us that as well and saved us a LOT of money. So, our ER visit ended at 9:00 pm with a trip through the WalGreens drive-thru pharmacy while Rhett downed half a cheeseburger in the backseat.
It has been two days since his accident and I'm a little more paranoid with what he carries around now. I am also praying that it will heal quickly and it seems to be doing just that which is a huge praise. I'm not going to take him to his pediatrician in the morning like the ER docs said too because it looks to be doing fine. I can tell it's healing and I'm not going to pay the $20 co-pay for the doctor to tell me the same thing.
So, for Rhett's first trip it wasn't so bad. Let's just hope there is a lot of time before his next trip in and that next time a trip to Quick Care will do the trick.
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