Mark it in the baby book- first trip to the ER, December 30, 2005.

To be up front about this- Fuller is fine. Probably a little sore, but fine. No phone calls, please. Unless you gave birth to me and then you can call me. Otherwise, let me sleep in.

My poor little baby. He was walking, while holding a DVD case, fell and the DVD case hit him in the mouth, causing one of his upper front teeth to get knocked up and back. The initial response was that silent cry where he has his mouth open but no sound for what seems like forever and then suddenly he was screaming at the top of his lungs. I knew he was hurt and I picked him up, but when the blood showed up I did a quick check to find out what was bleeding and it was pretty obvious it was that baby tooth. Upper front, left side.

Oh, and did I mention that this happened in Blockbuster?

After a consult with Damon, we called the doctor, left a message with the answering service who paged Mandy. Mandy called me back, notified me that the call was being recorded and proceeded to ask me questions.

No it wasn’t bleeding any longer.
Yes, the tooth was knocked back, kind of askew. No, it wasn’t hanging loose.
No, he wasn’t unconcious. Yes, his disposition seems fine. No, it seems that it hurts when he eats.

And then Mandy told me that protocol is that if the tooth is knocked out of place the child has to go to the doctor to assess if the tooth could fall out because the child could swallow, choke, or aspirate it.

So, at 9 pm we made our way to TC Thompson’s Emeregency room where Fuller was seen in triage immediately, sent to a room immediately, and given an orange popsicle immediately. He winced a few times when it went in his mouth, but I think the cold was helping the pain so he suffered through and ate almost the whole thing. When he got to the stick part he didn’t really know what to do, so I took it off the stick but then he didn’t want it any more.

The nurse practitioner gave orders for tylenol and someone came back and handed me the syringe to administer the medicine to Fuller myself. This step seemed a little odd to me, because then several people got to see me wrestle my son to get a syringe in his mouth and force him to take the medicine. Fortunately Fuller doesn’t mind Tylenol, so once the syringe was in his mouth he sucked the goo down like a champ. I still had to pin his arms down, but he got much praise from the staff for being a good boy.

We were in and out of there in less than an hour. The diagnosis is that the tooth was pushed up and back, firmly keeping it in his mouth and that it isn’t in danger of harming his permanent teeth.

I don’t remember my first visit to the ER as a child, but I would say that for Fuller his first visit (and maybe his last?) ["Ha Ha. No chance of that." - DWord] was an overall good experience. Not too much blood, no stitches, and the only crying while we were there occurred as we were leaving as I wouldn’t let him have the second popsicle.

He’s such a brave little boy.

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