My Child’s First Real Injury: The Conclusion
Many of you are aware of my disastrous trip to SeaWorld with my then 16 month old daughter, and her sister, 4 months gestation.
In part two, I left you with the news that my daughter, my pumpkin, the apple of my eye, needed to have one of her front teeth removed and this was the look we were expecting:
I thought it was time for an update, two months on from the surgery.
But first, to backtrack a little.
Crying a river
“I cried for days. The Husband has been a great sport, he’s been holding down the emotional fort whilst I’ve been wallowing in my own misery.”
– Part 2
And then I cried some more.
I cried all the way up until one evening during dinner, while my tears were pooling in my food, the Husband threw his head back to the ceiling and said “Are we still crying about this tooth? It could be so much worse! This tooth is a problem and we can solve it, easily. We are solving a problem. It’s awesome that we can even do that!”
And that’s when I stopped crying about it. Because he was absolutely right.
I was so caught up in how she will look and what this will be like for her, and how guilty I felt about it all, that I wasn’t really focusing on the fact that this is such a small deal in the grand scheme of things.
What if she needed a leg to be amputated? That’s a problem!
And thus, I got over myself and stopped being a weepy mess.
The day of
It’s 6am and we arrive at the hospital; they do all the checks, take their little notes and we’re left with nothing to do but wait.
And play.
Yep, this is the hospital play area and loving kitchens, the kid was excited about this part!
It’s time
The anesthetist comes and explains that I’ll go in with the kid until she’s under the anesthetic and then I’ll be coming back to wait until it’s over. The procedure should only take around 45 minutes and I’ll meet her when she’s finished.
They will wake her up before wheeling her out, I won’t be there when she wakes.
All I could say was, good luck to them.
I take her in and I have to remember that I’m the adult here, and I’m supposed to hold it together, even though I want to throw up.
As we’re entering the theater, the kid does not want to go inside. There are tears.
We enter eventually and I sit her in my lap while they try to put a breathing mask on her face that will basically knock her out enough for them to get a cannula in her hand for the anesthetic.
As I’m holding her, I try and soothe her, she’s twisting her head back and forth to avoid the mask, there’s strawberry flavoured laughing gas floating about and I go to my happy place.
Because how can I do this to my daughter?
Finally the mask is on, her eyes have rolled to the back of her head, she’s ready for her surgery and I’m ready to get the fuck out of there so I can get back to the Husband and cry without all the doctors staring at me.
The wait
Pretty uneventful. We ate sandwiches, drank coffee, fed the baby.
It’s over!
And just like that, 45 minutes later, I get a phone call that it’s over and they are about to wake her up. Everything went well, only one tooth was removed and she’s totally fine.
I am brought back into the hospital ward and as I’m waiting for her, I hear her little voice carry itself down a long corridor and around a corner, piercing straight through my being. I’m on my feet in milliseconds to find her.
As I round a corner, I see her sitting up in a giant bed, looking all sleepy, her mouth bloody and swollen, crying for me.
Gah!
We have our reunion and when she’s in my arms, this is when she notices the bandage on her hand where the cannula is and this is when her behaviour gets scary because she’s still obviously affected by the anesthetic and she begins thrashing around like a wild animal trying to take this bandage off.
The nurse says she has to keep it on, but I’m like, lady, if you can keep her from pulling it out of her own hand, you do your thing, because she hates band aids let alone her whole hand being wrapped up.
The Kid: 1; Nurse: 0
The bandage came off.
And the kid passed out.
And I mean passed out. Not fell asleep.
Her mouth is bleeding, there’s blood everywhere, but she’s in my arms and I can see her and I can feel her breathe and that’s good enough for me.
When she wakes up, she’s treated with ice cream and some jelly, which doesn’t make her as excited as I expected it would.
Home time
And we’re home! She gets another little treat for being a super kid and to alleviate any anger towards mummy for dropping her on her face, ultimately requiring surgery.
For the next couple of days, she acts all funny. She’s super active one second, sleeping the next.
But all in all, the recovery was extremely quick and she was back to herself in no time.
How I feel now
Having the tooth out was a huge relief actually. The kid took it all in her stride, there wasn’t a second where I felt like she was anything but completely indifferent about it all.
And the tooth needed to come out, there’s no question about it.
I know you’re all dying to see it, so here it is before I make a key chain out of it.
I don’t know how well you can see that, but the root is completely cracked and that goes half way down the tooth.
So, it was a problem and we fixed it.
And the little pirate? Still cute.
How do you like my photo shopping skills?
So there’s that chapter of our lives. Actually, for the next 4 or so years of our lives.
Thanks for tuning in and, remember, don’t drop your kids, people!
B.
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