The Phone Call from School

There is nothing worse than getting a phone call from your child's school nurse in the middle of the day. Nothing. At all.

I was driving home around 3ish when my phone signaled that I had a voice mail. I figured I just didn't hear it ring because I listen to my music in the car quite loud. It's my downtime, my escape if you will. When I called for the message, the time stamp on it was from 10:08 this morning. I was quite confused.

It was the school nurse. She began the message with:

"Hi Mrs. Walsh, this is Mrs. XXX, the school nurse from Dever. I don't want to alarm you, and Caitlyn is ok."

Thank God she said that at the beginning of the message otherwise there might have been a car accident. She went on to say that Caitlyn had tripped on the stairs and her top tooth on the left side went through her bottom lip.

I'll wait for a second while you cringe.

Apparently, she fell, hit her mouth, her top tooth went through the top part of her bottom lip and caused quite a bit of blood. In the message she said they were "able to finally stop the bleeding" and Caitlyn was going back to class with an ice pack and that she was fine. She also said I could call if I wanted to check on her. Oh, and that she had a little bit of a fat lip.

Immediately (after knowing she was fine) I thought:

"These people are going to think that I don't even care enough to call back when they tell me that my child has had a pretty significant accident at school!"

So I called the school. Because damn it I will NOT be that mom. I explained that I was just now getting the message and apologized profusely about it. I was assured that Caitlyn was fine. However, I needed to have a form filled out by her doctor. I was a little confused, but agreed.

When I picked Caitlyn up from my mom's house I couldn't believe how swollen her lip was. And the hole people! There is a hole in her lip from where her tooth pierced it.

I can wait again if you need to cringe.

The form that needs to be filled out is basically a form that says she is not restricted from any physical activity at school. In a round about way, I think it is releasing them from any liability of anything that happens as a result of this.

I made an appointment for Saturday and now I am really glad that I did. She is complaining that her hand is hurting her and it is "weak" when she picks things up. Her knuckle is a little discolored and swollen so I want the doctor to look at it just to confirm that it is fine.

And the kicker of it all.....the tooth that managed to cause all of this is that damn extra tooth that she has in her mouth. Not sure if I ever mentioned it before, but for 4 years she had a gap in between her front tooth and the one next to it. The dentist has said that he believes it is probably because the vent sat on that spot on her gum causing a space, which in turn made room for a tooth. Something along those lines. He also told me that he has NEVER seen it take 4 years for a bay tooth to grow out. Well, he needs to understand that all the rules are broken when he is dealing with my kid. And now that tooth is loose.

Hopefully there is nothing wrong with her hand and she can get over the trauma of all the blood that was everywhere.

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