Growing Pains

I just went through one of the scariest moments of my life:


According to my mom (I didn't see because I was getting dressed in my room), my son was walking with a vase, which he always messes with (although he's not supposed to have it). He fell and with the vase in hand and hit his mouth on it. I heard him cry and I tried to grab my robe as quickly as possible (because we mothers and fathers know that cry when our child is hurt) and started for the door but my mom opened it before I did. She said "He bit his tongue" before I could ask what happened. She rushed into the bathroom and my son reached for me...that's when I noticed the blood. There was so much wine colored blood that I couldn't said anything else except "Oh s**t" as I grabbed him and rinsed his mouth with water. At that point, I could not see just how deep the bite was but I knew it had to have been significant damage with that amount of blood. His face was covered in blood, snot, and tears. My little baby. I couldn't help but cry myself while trying to tell him that everything will be okay. At one point I grew too weak to stand and sat on the bathroom floor with him as I rocked him and placed a towel in his mouth to try to stop the bleeding. He lied against my chest and started drifting off to sleep, with random outbursts here and there. I changed his clothes and took him to the Emergency Room to see how deep his cut was.


The doctor told me that although the cut was deep, there was nothing they could do about it because interfering with the tongue's natural healing process could increase the chances of infection. He prescribed my son antibiotics and I purchased pain reliever from the pharmacy; the whole time, replaying the moment that I saw the blood pour from his mouth and into the sink over and over again.


Nothing can prepare a parent for moments like this. I hate that he had to experience that type of pain at such a young age. I've never seen anyone with a bite so deep. It looked as if his tongue had a mouth of its own. I know how it feels when you're talking while chewing gum and accidentally bite your tongue so I'm sure what he went through was nothing nice.


 I love my son more than I love myself and all I wanted was to take his pain away from him. This just makes me realize that I can't protect him from everything, not matter how badly I want to. He is only 16 months old so I know that I have a lifetime of more bumps, scrapes, bruises and everything else. I'm not equipped for this type of stuff!!!!! At least I thought I wasn't but even through the tears I still managed to pack his bag and get him to the ER in a timely (and safe) manner.


He is currently sleeping off his eventful day. I am currently trying to calm myself and not think about the blood.


As one of the nurses said to me "It's all growing pains." I couldn't have put it better myself.