From Elation to Being Purely Terrified

Whilst having kids is the most amazing rewarding thing in the world, it can also be the most terrifying.

From starting the day amazingly, yesterday turned into a nightmare.

It was just before 4pm and James asked for a drink, when I came back in the room, he was crying, not loud but he looked scared, he looked panicked. I saw his mouth was bleeding. Lots and lots of blood.

Matthew said he thought he'd fell.

I've never seen so much blood, looking in his mouth the flesh between the lip and gum was torn and his two top teeth had been pushed back into his gum. I was a little hysterical as James by now was screaming but I called the out of hours doctors. They phoned back within seconds and reccommended I took him to the local Accident and Emergency Department as he may need a stitch. Hubby was at work and I had the two others at home so the doctor recommended I called an ambulance.

Within 2 minutes of getting off the phone to an ambulance centre, our first car turned up. The paramedic was lovely, he managed to calm James down enough so he could have a look and we gave him some kids medicine to calm any pain. He then sat on the sofa whilst mummy ran around trying to get a neighbour to look after Liam and Matthew for a while. I phoned my mum and asked her to collect the boys from the neighbour as they were going out later as I didn't have any idea when hubby would be home from work.

The proper ambulance arrived, blue lights flashing and the ambulance crew came in to find a calm little boy behaving himself wonderfully. The first paramedic said we would be better off going straight to Addenbrookes hospital in Cambridge since they were more specialised in childrens care and that if he needed to see a dental specialist regarding his teeth, he wouldn't need to be transferred.

We didn't go in the ambulance but in the rapid response vehicle. James loved it as it was the same type of car as ours. He took a Fireman Sam Fire Engine and Peppa Pig car to the hospital along with his special blanket. He did fall asleep on the way up there and where his head tilted, he was left with a big dry patch of blood including the odd clot all over his cheek.

The staff at the hospital were amazing! They got James settled very quickly. Hubby phoned to say he was on his way to us and we didn't seem to wait long at all to see a nurse, closely followed by an expert in facial injuries. We were told the blood made it look much worse than it was so James had his face and mouth cleaned out and I was shown how to stop the blood flow. I was doing this when hubby arrived. We'd been in the hospital less than an hour in total and had been seen by 2 nurses and a specialist. Once the specialist was satisfied the bleeding had stopped we were allowed to leave.

Regarding his teeth, the specialist said they would probably fall out of their own accord. They could give him general anaesthetic but the downfalls outweigh the benefits of leaving it to nature. We were also told to give him cold soft food for the next few days such as yogurts, rice pudding etc. and were given a follow up appointment for Monday morning to see how he is healing.

Coming home, James was a little sick. He was bringing up brown blood clots. This was probably alot of the blood he had swallowed and we were aware it may happen.  Besides looking very pale he seemed fine. We called in a Supermarket on the way home to get James some soft food, more kids paracetamol and we treated him to some new Cars pj's.

We arrived home to my mum and nan looking after Matthew, Liam was already in bed.

James still kept bleeding on and off but the hospital gave me plenty of gauze to stop the blood flow.

Overnight James appeared to lose alot of blood. I was worried. I hadn't eaten last night out of stress, I couldn't sleep and by 2.30am I was in tears because of the blood and the clots all over his bed, his face, in his hair and felt so useless. I wanted to stop the bleeding, I wanted to stop worrying. Worrying about his injury, his breathing, what if his mouth/throat closed up and restricted his airways? Everything goes through your mind although you know the Doctors are great at their jobs and they wouldn't have released him from hospital if they didn't think he was fit. Also the mouth doesn't lose much blood, it's mostly mixed with saliva so it looks worse than it is. But mummy's worry no end!  His lip was majorly swollen. James kept pushing me away as he just wanted to sleep. Eventually, he let me do it and he had his first drink in hours. That reassured me enough so I was able to sleep for a few hours.

At 6.30 he was in the bath. Blood was everywhere. He reminded me of The Joker from Batman but it was blood. A good clean later and fresh water in the bath and he was looking like James again, not like he'd been at the centre of a massacre. The swelling had gone down on his upper lip and I realised as I was stopping the blood flow again that he's lost one of the teeth. I think it's probably best to lose them sooner rather than later so it doesn't heal and then he suffers later.

Now, a couple of hours later he seems completely back to normal. He's just polished off 4 mini fromage frais yogurts and I've not had to stop him bleeding since we were in the bath so fingers crossed, his little body is mending very quickly.

Unfortunately I don't think we will ever get to the bottom of what he did. The doctors and paramedics said it looked like a fall but James wont really tell us what happened.

Today is going to be a peaceful day in with lots of hugs and cuddles to my little ones. The special blanket is in the washing machine as we speak getting rid of any blood stains (along with the brand new pyjamas) so we can soon have cuddles with "Car-Car". I do expect any poos today to be tinged with brown blood and possibly clots, if he's swallowed blood it will need to come out one way or another.

Here's to a better day today.