Turn for the Worse

And the traumatic event continues…last night I woke up to Aston screaming at 2 am.  I have not had to go up there in the middle of the night for at least 6 months  or so.  I was convinced he climbed out of his crib and we were gonna have to make another trip to the ER.  So of course I was relieved when I found he was just standing there.  He was hysterical.  I picked him up and we rocked and when he was finally able to speak he said he wanted Daddy so we went to get Jeff and he told us his new Corvette fell down behind the crib. 

Jeff had to turn on the light to find the car.  As soon as that light went on my heart was in my throat.  His nicely sewn together boo boo had split open and was oozing blood and other fluids.  He was in pain.  It had swelled 2 fold and was red and hot to the touch.  I wanted to get him help right there and then.  I wanted to offer any decent Doctor our life savings to come to our house and fix my baby’s face.  I wanted to throw up.  I wanted to hold him tight. I was helpless. I called the on duty nurse at his Pediatrician's office and she said we could go to the ER but would be better if we waited.  I went online and researched Pediatric Plastic Surgeons in Charlotte.  I made a spreadsheet of names, numbers and addresses.  Aston was up until 4 am with Jeff upstairs. Then I watched him sleep on the monitor…I watched his every move…wanted to make sure he didn’t roll onto his cheek and further aggravate it.  At 7am I called one of the Plastic Surgeons (Dr. Matthews) office just to find out their hours and the call center actually paged the Doctor for me.  I was so excited I probably sounded like a freak.  He said he would be out of surgery at 10 am and to call the office at 9 and he would get me in.  Long story short after many LONG calls to many doctor offices we ended up getting an appointment with Dr. Matthews at 11.  

I went in thinking Dr. Matthews was gonna rub some magic cream on his face and it will be all better.  Instead he did nothing and said there was nothing he could do.  Dr. Matthews is a wonderful man…I just had that gut feeling.  Plus Jeff and Babs (yes Babs was there too for support and help…BB supplied support later so I could take a quick snooze) read an article that said he is known for performing craniofacial surgery on kids when no other doctor would touch them because of its risky nature.  He’s a very hippy doctor which I appreciate.  He prefers healing the body through nutrition and natural medicine…seems kinda like an oxymoron being a Plastic Surgeon and all.  He told us Aston had fluid that had built up  in his cheek (hence the golf ball size knot I wrote about yesterday) and that it needed to come out one way or the other.  A syringe would have been the best way but that had not previously been offered to us:(

He told us to keep it clean, apply a hot compress to encourage the fluid to release, insist on a very low sugar/starch diet, apply antibacterial cream and eventually apply a mixture of half castor half sesame oil to help with scarring.  We follow up with him next Friday.  Aston was a CHAMP…his goal again was the lollipop (yes, sugar free:)).

Just to have a photo…before stitch removal