Brennan's Owie Adventure

Warning: Extremely long and detailed story of crazy ER events. No reading necessary, this is just for my records, unless you like reading this kind of thing :) However, you can scan down to the bottom to see pics of Brennan.

Tuesday morning I went grocery shopping with the kids. We got back about 12:30 and I started making them lunch while bringing in the groceries. I was standing in the kitchen, turned around, and saw Brennan start climbing up on a bar stool that he had turned upside down. I said "Brennan don't...." and before I could finish he had fallen over backwards and whacked his chin. He stood up screaming while I grabbed him and saw the blood. Cadence grabbed a towel and we put that up to Brennan's mouth. It took a few minutes to even be able to see what was cut, then when I did finally see I rushed all three kids out to the car, threw the frozen groceries in the freezer, and headed off to the instacare.

I ran in and told them "My son bit through his tongue." They called a nurse up to check and it aggravated me to watch her through the windows as she sauntered over, got some gloves, stopped to chat with someone, and then finally came out to the waiting area. Call me impatient, but my child was bleeding. He wouldn't open his mouth for her. She said "We don't usually treat tongue wounds." I said "This one is big!" She told me we needed to go to Primary Children's ER just in case they needed to do stitches so he could be sedated.

I borrowed the phone and called Michael (for the life of me I KNEW I had grabbed my phone on the way out the door, but couldn't find it anywhere! It ended up being in the back seat of the car by the kids). I told him I was at the instacare with Brennan and headed to Primary's and could I please pick him up on the way?

We got to the ER about 45 minutes after Brennan had cut himself. The bleeding had mostly stopped after the first 10 minutes, but if he moved his tongue it would start up again. So, he had a cloth in his mouth, both to soak up the blood and drool that he didn't want to swallow, and also as a comfort to him, like a bandaid.

We didn't have to wait long before being taken back. I went back with him and Michael stayed with the other two in the waiting room.... for a few minutes anyway, then Brennan sat up in my arms and said "Where's Daddy!! I want Daddy to hold me!" So I called Michael and told him to come back.

A doctor came in, we convinced Brennan to open his mouth. She took a look and said she thought it needed to be repaired and would go get another physician to take a look, but be ready for sedation. She was very nice.

Then an RN came in to check on Brennan and said if they decided to do the stitches she would be back to start an IV. She was also very nice.

Then the attending physician came in. Brennan did not want to open his mouth for her. She did not have very good bedside manners with him and it scared him. We finally convinced him to, and she took a really quick look and said "No, I wouldn't stitch that. Just let it heal on it's own."

I tell her that I'm a dental hygienist and know a lot about the mouth and I feel like it's a very bad very deep cut. She says that mouth wounds always look worse than they are because they bleed so much. I tell her I completely understand that, however I have seen the wound when it is gaping open and I'm pretty sure it's at least 3/4's of the way through his tongue if not all the way through, and it's almost an inch wide. She saw it when Brennan was holding his tongue very still and it just looked like a line across it. She said "No, I wouldn't treat it." And I told her that I disagreed. Then she gets all huffy and says "Well, then who else do you want to look at it?"

Honestly up until that point I would have been fine with her taking another closer look at it, but when she got upset with me for being a concerned parent who just wanted to make sure her little boy wasn't going to be permanently damaged because of this injury I didn't want her anywhere near him. Michael agreed, so we asked for another doctor to come and give a 3rd opinion. We hated how the doctor put it on us to make the decision whether we should have it stitched or not. We just wanted our baby boy to be taken care of.

So, I called the dental office where I work and talked to Dr. Blackwood and asked him his opinion. He told me if it was his daughter there he would demand that they look at it again and stitch it because he'd be worried about scar tissue and functionality. When the doctors came back in I told them that, and then they were fixated on the fact that I had gotten another opinion from someone I know and trust, so if I want to have it stitched, why doesn't Dr. Blackwood come up to the hospital and stitch it-- they'd be happy to do the sedation. They really weren't getting it. The only reason I called him was to get validation that I wasn't completely crazy thinking that sometimes tongues do get stitched depending on the severity, and we wanted to make the best decision for Brennan.

The 3rd doctor who came in was worse than the other one. She came in and said "I've stitched one tongue in my entire career and I wish I hadn't, it didn't help with the outcome at all." Immediately Michael and I are thinking "Then you wouldn't be the one we'd have stitch it!" She took a little look in Brennan's mouth and said "No, it's not a big enough cut to warrant that." I told her that in my understanding if a cut is larger than a centimeter on the tongue then it does warrant being treated. She said "Well, let's measure it then! Let me go get a ruler." Are you kidding me? Do you really need a ruler to see that it's bigger than a centimeter? She came back with a ruler and said "It looks like it's maybe just over 1.5 centimeters, so I wouldn't worry about it." We looked at her and were thinking- you're crazy! Over 1.5 means it's pretty darn close to 2, and you're not even taking into account the depth-- all the way through!!

Again she says that if we want it stitched we can have Dr. Blackwood come up to the hospital and they will do the sedation and he can stitch it. I tell them "HE IS NOT A PEDIATRIC DENTIST OR ORAL SURGEON. I called him for his professional opinion, not because he can fix it." grr. We're getting pretty irritated by now. So then she says "Well, we do have some pediatric dentists in the hospital-- do you want me to go get one?" We say "Yes please!"

Meanwhile, I had told Doctor #2 that Brennan had quite a bit of swelling under his chin from the trauma-- just alerting her to the fact. She takes it like we're worried about more injury-- "Did he have a stick in his mouth when he fell? Did he hit his neck? Let's get some soft tissue xrays and maybe a CT scan under his chin to see if there's loose air or trauma under there. There shouldn't be swelling in that area just from a tongue bite." ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? Huge tongue trauma like that and there definitely should be swelling there!! I tell you that doctor did not know what she was doing.

Pediatric dentist #1 comes in-- he is very nice, very good with Brennan, takes a long time to look at his tongue, sees the injury open and closed, feels under his chin and says that the submandibular swelling is completely normal, thinks about the possibility of scar tissue, taste, movement, speech, etc. Says this injury is borderline and he would like to bring in another colleague to take a look who has been a pedodontist for 30 years.

Michael and I look at each other like "Finally, we have someone who is ACTUALLY trying to care for our son!!"

Pediatric dentist #1 and #2 come back in. The new one is very nice too, really takes a good look, even feels very gently the top and bottom of Brennan's tongue to feel how the wound opens and closes. The two dentists collaborate with each other. They decide that they think it will heal alright without stitches-- they would be concerned that Brennan would chew on the stitches and there might be more chance of infection if the wound was closed. We asked them about antibiotics during the healing process and they said they didn't think that was necessary unless it starts showing signs of infection. We asked about pain control (we've now been in the ER for 4 hours, and Brennan hasn't even been given Tylenol.) They said we should ask the doctors for a prescription of Lortabs to help decrease the swelling and eliminate the pain, at least for the first day or so.

This was an opinion we could trust, so we went with it.

Radiology came to get Brennan for the xrays and we refused them. The 2nd doctor came in and said "Why did you refuse the xrays? Aren't you worried about trauma?" And I said "No, the pediatric dentists agree that it's just normal swelling from the tongue injury." She looked at me like I was a terrible person and left the room.

The first doctor came back in and asked us if there was anything else they could do, so we asked about getting the prescription for Lortabs. She said she would need to talk to #2, but probably would recommend giving Brennan Benadryl to help him sleep. I said "Benadryl is an allergy medication. I want him to have pain control." #2 came in and demanded to know why we wanted a Rx for Lortabs. She said Brennan wouldn't have pain with this. EXCUSE ME!!! I felt like yelling at her-- "IF YOU HAD JUST BITTEN THROUGH YOUR TONGUE, YOU WOULD BE ASKING FOR MORPHINE!!!" She gave me an Rx for 1 (ONE) dose of Lortab.

The RN came in with the discharge papers, more gauze for Brennan who loved having it in his mouth to keep his tongue still, and slushies for all the kids and we left.

I gave Brennan Tylenol as soon as we got home, and alternated with Motrin. I ended up not filling the Rx for one dose of Lortab, mainly because I was too exhausted to go to the pharmacy and once Brennan fell asleep he did really well all night. As he was going to sleep I had to take the gauze out of his mouth because I didn't want him to choke on it in the night. He gave it up easily, but then 5 minutes later he was crying and I ran to him and he said "Mommy, I won't choke on it! I want gauze!!" I gave him a soft towel instead and he fell asleep with the corner of it in his mouth.

It is amazing how quickly the mouth heals. It still looks extremely painful (two days later) but Brennan is doing very well-- he has wanted to eat everything the other kids are eating. The first night he had yogurt, a popsicle, and pudding for dinner, but the next morning he wanted cereal. I asked him how it felt and he said "It's a lot owie, but it's okay." What a tough guy!

We haven't gotten the bills for EmmaRay's ER visit in Colorado yet (a month and a half ago), or Michael's ER visit for a kidney stone (a week and a half ago) and here we are with #3 pending too. Ugh.