Broken Nose

Emily brought Caleb in the house from playing yesterday.  He was screaming and she was yelling that he had a bloody nose (Emily and blood are not a good combination) and that he had fallen into Josh’s WINDOW WELL!!  His nose was indeed bloody, and I wondered if he had injured something in his mouth as well.  I got him cleaned up and was pinching his nose to get the bleeding to stop, and through his tears he kept telling me, “That hurts!”  His mouth was fine, but his nose definitely wasn’t.

 

I haven’t had much experience with broken bones – especially broken noses – but by the looks of it, I was pretty sure it was broken.  I called Jared at work – it was about 4:45 p.m. – to ask his opinion, as he’s at least seen a broken nose before.  We decided to call the pediatrician and see if we could get in to see him.  His nurse informed me that he was in California, and that we should call the ENT.  After a quick call to the ENT, we were on our way to the E.R.

Caleb fell asleep while we waited in the waiting room for over an hour!  We finally got back to a room and saw the nurse practitioner.  After a few questions – most about the possibility of a concussion – she said it sure looked like the nose was broken and that we could choose to have x-rays if we wanted.  (Until the swelling goes down, there’s nothing to be done, so the treatment for now is the same whether it is broken or not.)  I didn’t want to wonder in two days if it was really broken and if we should go see the doctor, so I opted for the sure thing.

And sure enough, it’s broken.  But they said it looks pretty straight…for now, at least.  The swelling can move things around, so we’ll see in a few days.

(A blurry picture, but a good shot of his nose.)

Caleb was a trooper and didn’t cry a single tear once we left the house.  He only asked when we could go home 329 times.  When we got home he was met with lots of hugs and questions about his well-being.

He went to bed looking like this:

And he woke up this morning looking like this:

 

We’re glad that everything turned out as well as it did.  My mind has conjured up all sorts of horrible scenarios that could have occurred, and I think we came out of it with almost the best outcome.  Tender mercy in our never-dull life!!