Fun with Hospitals

Some days just don't go according to plan.

Yesterday, the Terror went to the dentist for his last filling. It was bigger than the previous ones, so they gave him some local anaesthetic. The dental hygienist doing it had to stop him from chomping on his cheek a few times and warned us to look out for him doing that - apparently lots of children do because it feels funny when it's numb. He was brilliant as ever with the actual procedure, and we warned him lots against biting himself as it would really really hurt when the anaesthetic wore off.

Of course, within minutes of getting him home, he'd bitten himself and drawn blood. I spent the remainder of the day stopping him from prodding it any more, and Calpol and cuddles were necessary when it inevitably started to hurt.

This morning, his bottom lip and inside of cheek were slightly swollen and there appeared to be lots of scar tissue forming. We concluded he'd been chewing on it overnight, but as he didn't appear to be in pain and we couldn't think of any way of cleaning the wound, we took him to school. Within an hour, Daddy got a phone call saying he's complained about his mouth and it seemed to be worse and oozing pus so he ran off to collect him. I caught up with them just after they'd left the GP's surgery not having been able to get an appointment before tomorrow, and we went home, got the car and drove to the Walk-in Centre.

And waited for about an hour and a half. We got pretty fed up of reading books to him. He played a bit, and had some of his packed lunch but started to get very restless and wanting to go home. The nurse practitioner who saw us was audibly shocked by how large and yucky the wound was, and suspecting an abscess, contacted the hospital who agreed to admit him straight away. So off we trundled to York District Hospital, Ward 17. The Terror complained a little, but we explained that the doctors needed to clean his mouth and give him medicine to make it better, and once we got there he settled down, chatted with the friendly nurse, and got us yet more books to read to him. Eventually he was assigned a bed and let loose in the play area. He pretty much didn't stop from then on, and unfortunately always required at least one of us to be playing with him.

When the consultant finally managed to see him, he was impressed by how well and cheerful he seemed. And, rather anticlimactically, he decided nothing really needed to be done. It doesn't actually appear to be infected, just swollen. So he prescribed us antibiotics. Which we had to wait for.

The Terror was rather happy to spend the afternoon playing with all the different toys, and we were admittedly relieved it turned out to be nothing serious after all. But it was a whole day spent, mostly sitting around, when Daddy at least had work that he ought to have been doing. On the plus side, the Terror did end up getting his tea at the hospital. On the downside, he missed his Christmas party at school.

And now he's taking time to settle, when we are both shattered, and I still have to make a start on marking. At least I have a glass of nice wine to help me along...