Two days after Noah turned 3, I was wiping the table down after dinner not paying much attention to Noah excitedly running back and forth as he "helped" me clear the table, until he fell and slammed his face onto the floor. Looking back, I think he had climbed back onto his booster seat to grab something and as he was trying to get back down, his feet got caught and he fell head first.
I was calm at first even with the blood, but when I saw a tooth in my hand and what seemed like more in his mouth, I hit the panic button. The following moments kind of blurred by, but I do remember yelling for Terah who was upstairs with Max and having the singular thought that someone needs to see Noah NOW. We rushed to the car and debated whether to head to urgent care or the ER, but ultimately ER was just down the street. On hindsight, unless it is life threatening, which even in my panicked state I knew it was not, urgent care is probably the better option.
After a long night at the ER, they checked him and told us to see a dentist right away. The next morning we saw a dentist, then a pediatric oral surgeon, then a pediatric anesthesiologist. I am thankful for all these doctors who were so kind to us in my raw state and who went out of their way to help. The anesthesiologist even drove all the way back from SF so that Noah could have surgery that very evening to clean him up, and the surgeon personally called us later that night, presumably from his own home, to check on Noah.
Noah has been recovering remarkably well, but it will take me a little more time. The look of bewilderment and fear he gave me when they placed the gas mask on him right before he went under will be hard to forget. I shed a few tears in the waiting room after that.
He cried for three hours after he woke because he was thrown off by the numbness of his mouth. I just stood and rocked him and let him cry out his long day. At first, getting him to even swallow a sip of water was no small feat. I am sure every parent has a hard time seeing their child harmed in any way, and I'm tensing up even as I'm writing this. But writing has always helped me face my fears, which I'm going to need because just two days after his surgery, he was already trying to climb the toilet when he fell off and bumped his head.
When the dentist hands you a diagnosis with "hopeless" and "hanging by a thread," you know it's not good... at least it gave us a moment of laughter during a long day.
Here's to surviving a parental rite of passage that I hope to never repeat!
