The Lens:
My husband and I have a vacation home in the mountains. For some reason, homeowner chores don’t seem so much like chores in the mountains as they do at home.
It’s been a hot summer in the mountains. I would say high 80’s are the norm. This summer, though, we have experienced a whole slew of 100+ degrees temps. Today we’ve hit 97. I guess that’s an improvement.
Still, too hot for me. Get outdoor activities done early, then retreat to the air-conditioned house.
My husband is a little more tolerant of the heat than I am. He decided to hose off the deck to clean off all of the cobwebs. Somehow, he managed to step on a broom that flipped up and smacked him in the face.
He came in with blood dripping from his lip. I took a quick look. Looked pretty nasty.
First thing I did was grab a washcloth from the linen closet, soak a portion of it in cold water, then wrap a couple of pieces of ice in it. I told my husband to put it on his lip and hold it there.
Husbands (at least mine, anyway) aren’t very good at listening to their wives. He kept pulling it back to take a look. After a few looks, I finally say, somewhat exasperated, “Would you just leave it there for 10 minutes.”
Once he resigned himself to following my instructions, I called the advice nurse and am put on a call-back. While we are waiting for the call-back, the 10 minutes pass. I wouldn’t say his lip had stopped bleeding, but it was more oozing than dripping. I internally give a little sigh of relief – it is looking like stitches won’t be needed.
Still, my husband has a mustache so the cut is tough to cover. My solution at this point was to put some Vaseline on it – to act as sort of a bandage. I suggest we wait though until we talk with advice.
Advice finally calls back. After a long series of questions, we have done the right things – ice to stem the swelling and bleeding. Vaseline, she says, would be good to use in lieu of a bandage.
The Refraction:
Disclosure: I am a mom, not a doctor. Always consult a doctor if you or someone is hurt or bleeding!
In my last post, I talked about motherhood being a transformative event. I don’t want to give the post away if you haven’t read it, but you change when you become a mom.
Something else happens when you become a mom. You learn how to triage, become a bit of a medic. You don’t get any training. It is all baptism by fire. Your kid falls down, cuts their head open and you have to deal with it.
The good news is you start to get pretty good at it. I remember when our second child was a mere week old, the older one decided jumping on the bed was a good idea. He ended up falling and slamming his head on the headboard. It was horrible.
To make matters worse, it was 9:00pm. I had just put the baby down. The last thing I wanted to do was to have to run him to the emergency room. I called advice. She ran through the concussion questions. All seemed good there.
Regarding the growing bruise on his face, she said, as bad as it looks, as long as the skin is not broken, just ice it – and that is what we did (he still ended up with the worst black eye I have ever seen, but it did eventually heal). File that info for future use.
My older son also had a penchant for breaking fingers. When he broke a third one, no doctor needed. I iced it, then taped a splint to it – voila!
As for the vaseline, well, that came when the two boys were playing and the younger ended up flying into a door cutting his head. Another tip from advice.
By the time I started working for a school and would occasionally have to sit in the office at lunch (also known as injury hour), my mom experience was all I needed to deal with just about anything the kids could deal.
So, a cut lip? Big deal. The big question was stitches or no stitches. While I was pretty sure after the 10 minutes of ice that stitches would not be necessary, it didn’t hurt to confirm with a professional, with an added benefit of assuring my husband of my recommended course of treatment.
As I explained to my husband later – ice slows the swelling and bleeding. “Ice slows bleeding?” he says a bit skeptical. If you didn’t know, it does.