Our four year old boy got hurt last night. An older boy ran into him in the playground at school and unfortunately, the older boy was bending down as he hit our son so their heads were at the same level and the older boy was wearing glasses which caused a lot of damage.
Our son ended up with a huge gash over his left eye which took about 15 to 20 stitches to close as well as a bunch of stitches inside the wound to pull the flesh together.
I was damn near in tears holding him as he cried, especially after seeing the wound because it looked really bad after I got the bleeding to stop. The flesh had been pushed up so it looked like a huge piece of skin had been torn out of his head (bigger than a NT dollar coin). Fortunately, the doctor was able to pull the flesh down and sew him up.
We still need to go back to the doctor today to check for infection and then again on Monday to see what can be done to minimize any scarring.
Like I said, I thought I was tougher than this but seeing my little boy crying, face covered in blood almost brought me to tears. The only reason I didn’t end up crying was because his mother was crying, people around him were crying and I was trying to get my boy to focus on me and try to calm him down. I figured if he saw me crying as well, it would just make things worse.
He was doing a lot better after we got him stitched up though. He even wanted to go play basketball as well as play hide and seek after we got home. We didn’t let him though but let him watch a movie. Today, he’s a bit puffy and a bit of a black eye but doesn’t seem to be doing to badly.
Now we’re just hoping that there won’t be to much scarring but I figure he’s young enough that even if there is some scarring it’ll fade over time.
Kids-You never know how tough you are until they get hurt.
Sounds like you did just fine, getting him to focus on you and calm down. Someone has to keep their cool, when all around all losing theirs.
That’s a fairly accurate definition of toughness to my mind.
Poor lad. Hope he’s doing OK now. I wouldn’t worry about whether he gets a scar or not. I’m reliably informed that facial scars are cool (especially if they look as if they might have been inflicted by a wild animal or a knife fight), so when he’s a teenager he’ll have one less thing to worry about
He’s doing better now and so am I. We just got back from the doctor and the cut doesn’t look as bad. It’s still quite big but it’s all cleaned up and the stitches look fairly neat. At least, I can get the image of a bloody mess out of my head now and replace it with an image of a nice cut all stitched up.
Little lads are tough. He’s fine and you held it together for him and his mother.
Then you came on here and admitted you’re not tough, which is tough.
So you’re a rugged tough guy with one of those square chin things and a permanent five o’clock shadow - but no matter, when bad things happen to kids it can cut up even the most hardest of people.
Now he’s doing OK and he has a neat little battle scar and he can use it in the future to impress the ladies with stories concerning lions, crashed aircraft and racing cars.
You did very well, and your little boy will be just fine. As has been indicated above, kids are really quite resilient. And not to be flippant, but, scars on boys are not such a bad thing. I have been a bit… OK, quite… accident prone all of my life, and I have the scars to prove it. In January I ripped open a nice laceration on my shin coming out of the water after a dive. Here’s that one after we got back to the hotel and before I cleaned and dressed it:
It healed up pretty well. Hurt badly for a while, but, its fine, now. Big scar, but, fine, otherwise. I kicked a bike last week and have a similar-sized, but, V-shaped nasty gash on the back of my other leg now. I didn’t photograph that one, but, its going to leave an impressive scar, too.
As a guy, I’ve never been disadvantaged by scars.
It is difficult to see your child in pain and frightened. But, you did really well. So did your boy, it seems! Good for both of you!
You did great!
If you’re worried about scarring, ask the doc to refer him to a plastic surgeon, pronto. Don’t wait unitl after it heals. It is relatively inexpensive here, plus the costs may even be covered by his jianbao.
Some really good plasitc surgeons at the Chang Gung hospitals. As everyone who’s swum with me knows, I am the king of scars, but it’d be a lot worse but for the work of the great plastic surgeons here.
It’s true, culturally scars on boys are cool, but a travesty on a girl.
I know a couple that were involved in a moped accident a few years ago. The woman ended up with an almost invisible scar on her cheek while the man nearly had his chin ripped off.
The insurance settlement payed out about 20x more money to her than her husband.
Nothing wrong with sniffling a bit when your kid is hurt, as long as it doesn’t hinder your acting as needed. It’s infinitely more distressing to see pain in one’s child than to feel it oneself. You should have seen me blubbing over my 2-year-old girl when she was seriously ill in hospital with salmonella poisoning, and when I had to hold her head still and pinch her nose to help the nurse give her her medicine. I bit my bottom lip to shreds, but there was no way to hold back the tears all of the time. I can’t even imagine how I’d handle it if anything really terrible happened to her.
I’m glad to hear that the lad’s on the mend, and as others have said, he can wear it proudly as a badge of toughness if it leaves a scar.
[quote=“TheGingerMan”]Sounds like you did just fine, getting him to focus on you and calm down. Someone has to keep their cool, when all around all losing theirs.
That’s a fairly accurate definition of toughness to my mind.[/quote]
This.
Ofcourse you felt like crying, I’d be shocked if you didn’t. But you got the job done. I hope your boy is better now. How is the other boy doing? Hope the glasses didn’t hurt him badly.Take care!
Oh dear, I hope your boy is doing okay. If it’s any consolation, there are a lot of boy Harry Potter fans who’d love a scar on their foreheads (my son’s one of them). If the scar doesn’t fade, he might even have fun making up stories about how he got it - shark attack, fighting off knife-wielding hooligans etc.
Yeah, he’s doing much better and is basically back to his usual self. It’s his mother and I who still go through a mild panic attack as he’s running around. We’re terrified he’s going to smack his head again but we also don’t want to make him think he’s injured for life and can’t do the things he likes to do. We’re trying to keep him a bit less active until the wound has a chance to heal a bit but our boy likes to run so it can be difficult. We’ve been reading books, watching movies and letting him play one of his games on the computer and that keeps him fairly settled.
We’re taking him to the plastic surgeon on Monday to see if we can do anything about making sure the scar isn’t too bad. Plus, from the looks of the stitches today it doesn’t look like it’ll be a big scar anyway.
The boy that ran into him is doing fine. He had a bit of a red face but other than that had no problems. He’s probably scared to come to school on Monday since he’s actually my student. I’ll probably have to pull him aside and tell him not to worry and that I understand it was just an accident.
Anyway, thanks again everyone. It’s nice to have another place to go to just talk about things.
We’re back from the plastic surgeon. He said the stitches were fine and that they needed to stay in for at least a week because the wound was so long. He said that any scar should fade as he gets older and to try and avoid the sun while it’s healing.
Remember what Captain Lance Murdoch says, “Bones heal. Chicks dig scars. Pain is temporary, glory is forever.” I’m pretty certain that scar will fade into nothingness, but if not, he can make up a great story about how he got it.
I also think you acted in a very tough way. People tend to lose their heads and you kept yours. That is a good sign of inner strength right there.
My boy who is now 16!! has had various accidents and trips to the hospital. It’s still not easy to watch him in pain.
He is not bothered about his various scars and will share how he got them with anyone who asks.
We use BioOil on the kids scars once it is well healed.
Not sure if this is available in Taiwan.
Your doctor did a fine job. Your son will be fine. When I was his age, I got one half the size on my left eye too with 8 stitches. I only remember mentioning it during elementary school. After that, it “disappeared”.
That’s a fine pic. The finished job looks nice and tidy, good work all round and nice story. I remember cracking my head open about the same age (headed the edge of a brick wall when playing soccer), had stitches in the scalp, of course that’s not as visible as the forehead.
Reckon your boy’s scar will have almost disappeared after a year, and the faint mark that is left behind will just serve to bond you together.
