Ephraim decided to climb on top of our high-top dining room table to look at something...
He slipped and fell; and as he fell he sliced his lower lip open when his mouth hit the edge of the table.
Charles held him and checked first for broken teeth (this is my first assumption when I see a child with blood pouring out of his mouth, since my brother knocked his two front teeth out of his mouth FOUR times!) There was a lot of blood, but his teeth looked fine. I went over to the table to see if I could tell what had happened... I was still looking for teeth or teeth marks, really... when Charles said the words a mother never wants to hear...
"Oh, my God... Samantha, you need to come look at this."
Ephraim's lower lip was gaping completely open, as if it had been intentionally sliced and pulled apart. In addition, it looked like a chunk of meat was missing.
I took him immediately to the Pediatric Emergency Center... a bit wary because of previous experiences there... but breathed a sigh of relief to see my own doctor's name listed as the physician on duty. Praise God!
A few hours later, after inhaling the coughs of a dozen children sick enough to be contagious but who would NOT (I knew) receive any antibiotics in this day and age and had therefore waited (and coughed on Ephraim and me) needlessly; I asked Dr. Ellison if I did the right thing by bringing Ephraim in or if I should have waited until the next day to see if the wound really needed stitches.
He said you have to get stitches within 12 hours of an injury, or it will be too late because the wound will begin to heal. In Ephraim's case, this could have been very bad because his lip was split beyond his lip line. If a lip is not torn beyond the lip line, stitches are not necessary; but anything beyond that may not align properly when it heals.Who knew?
There was really no danger that I wouldn't take Ephraim to the Emergency Center because of the way his lip looked; but the 12 hour time limit is a good thing to know.
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