The cake was barely cut at Karen and Drew's wedding when my phone rang (a Notre Dame Victory March ring tone, which is probably a dicey choice at a wedding with a heavy Midshipman presence). Kate told me Lauren fell and cut her lip. Our neighbor, Lisa Albright, was helping Kate stop the bleeding and maintain the equilibrium, but it was clear we needed to leave ASAP.
After a false start with the car (that's a whole different post), we made it home, where I scooped Lauren up and took her to Nighttime Pediatrics. She was a little teary when we arrived home to get her, and the cut was still bleeding off and on. I was pretty sure she wasn't going to be able to avoid stitches this time. Lauren calmed down pretty quickly and was pretty cooperative as they cleaned the cut and checked her face. Unfortunately, they told us because of the location and nature of the cut (right above the right corner of her mouth, and crossing something called the vermilion line), Lauren really needed to be attended to by a plastic surgeon. Off we went to Anne Arundel Medical Center, stopping to collect juice, books, and a Leapster to pass the time.
If this had to happen to anyone, we were probably lucky it was Lauren. She was unbelievably good, especially since she was in pain, bleeding off and on, and waiting around environments not designed for children. Her only real show of impatience was with me, when I snagged a Cheez-It from the bag she (silently, of course) asked me to buy from the vending machine. In my defense, she wasn't eating them, probably because that wouldn't have felt too good. Nonetheless, if looks could kill ... She practiced writing letters in a coloring book they gave her, then began to color some of the pictures with bold, red strokes. I asked her if the bears in the pictures had cut themselves and she nodded yes. When we got back to her trauma room, we colored some more and made lots of rubber glove balloons. When Lauren discovered there was a curtain she could open and close, we had some peek-a-boo fun too. She was even eager to help the doctor, proffering her blankie when she heard him tell me they would wrap her up, numb her, and do the stitches. She handed him things as he set up his instruments, too.
This good humor lasted until he had to numb her mouth, which entailed several sticks in her lip and must have hurt more than getting the cut. As a veteran of a few dental procedures lately, I could pretty easily imagine her pain. Even then, she cried quite a bit but did not fight them. I got a front-row seat as they put a few stitches inside and outside her lip. She did a pretty thorough number on it -- my best guess is that her teeth did the damage.
She regained her sense of humor pretty quickly and insisted on packing my purse with a few of her favorite glove balloons and her blankie, since she decided the thing she most wanted to carry was her antibiotic prescription. We got home around midnight, treated her to a couple of popsicles (she's on a soft diet for a few days) and got her to bed. Mike reported that Maddie wasn't too keen on going to sleep without Lauren, and that they had played a lot of 'doctor,' treating Maddie's baby doll for any number of ailments.
Today she shook her head no every time I asked her if it hurt, so she's either healing well or very brave. The mouth is a bit puffy, and while she has tolerated the Neosporin I've rubbed on it intermittently, she wanted no part of the liquid antibiotic the doctor prescribed. I've given it to her twice and she's worn a lot more of it than she's swallowed.
Here she is, sporting the prizefighter look:
