Blood, Spit and Badges

Brynna bit through her tongue this weekend. Imma just gonna sit her for a minute and let you freak out...

Because that's what everyone else has done. Except for me and Brynna which I think is sort of the opposite of the way these things are supposed to go.

We were at this thing and Brynna was playing this game and it's all very complicated to explain, but she accidentally got kicked on the bottom of her jaw, driving her tooth up and through her tongue.

It was all very quick and quiet and I was looking the other way, so one of her friends ran over and said, "Brynna got kicked in the face."

I ran over and she was curled on the ground, more or less fetal, definitely covering her whole face. After a couple of rushed soothing words, I told her I needed to see her face. I was very afraid of a broken nose, blood gushing from a face wound, half her head already turning black. I was not afraid she bit her tongue.

When none of those things appeared to be going on, I asked her to come with me to the restroom for some cold water and further inspection. She came along gladly. Somehow, miraculously, when Brynna was a very small child, I managed to convince her that a cold wash cloth or an ice pack will solve anything. I don't know how I did it and I managed not to do it with Maren, but it was genius.

In the restroom, her tongue seemed by far to be the biggest issue, with blood pooling in her molars and a nearly steady stream of bloody spit making it's way to the sink bowl. I pressed a cold compress of soggy paper towels to her forehead and took a dry paper towel to the tongue to get it to stop bleeding. And then another. And then another. There was lots of blood is what I'm getting at here. Finally, it started to slow down and I noticed that the fresh paper towel had blood in two spots.

I asked her if she could stick out her tongue and there I saw the real damage. While the cut on top of her tongue was almost a pin prick in size, the cut on the bottom was pretty large and a little gapey. It was also turning black. Looking at the side of her tongue, I could see the bruise spreading up and that's when I realized. This was one tooth. All the way through.

We got the bleeding to stop and I sent her back to the event with an ice pack and a cold Capri-Sun. She had a fun rest of the day and went shopping with me that night. She's fine, is what I'm getting across. It isn't as bad as it sounds.

And it must sound bad. When I have a crisis, first I react. I triage and I take care of shit. Then, when everything is okay, I panic. And I call my mommy. And anyone else who will listen, but mommy comes first.

On Saturday, I started the calls and almost everyone seemed more panicked than I was. To the point that I started to panic that I wasn't panicking enough. Thank goodness for the other adult present who said, "Look at her. She's fine," and even managed not to roll her eyes.

The funny thing is that my mom took Maren to football practice and I took Brynna to Girl Scouts. Who would you have expected to come home injured?