Love Bug came off the swing in our garden late last Saturday afternoon. And by came off I mean she flew {a la SuperWoman} through the air … and landed on her face.

I was inside with my hair dryer on and heard a blood curdling scream. That second between hearing it and turning the dryer off {not wanting to wish anyone else ill fate of course} I hoped that scream wasn’t coming from within the confines of our home. The next iteration of the scream confirmed my worst fears. Within seconds I was in the kitchen – about the same time as Love Bug arrived inside from the garden.

Hands pressed against her face, screams escaping intermittently, all I could see was blood. Blood on the tiny bits of her face I could see. Blood pouring down her hands and arms. Blood. Pouring out of my Bubba.

Although my initial reaction was to scream, vomit and pass out {although not necessarily in that order!} my mumma inner voice was on repeat: do not freak out, do not over-react, remain calm, don’t stress her out any more than she currently is.

Ice pack, pillow slip to put the ice pack in, bubba in arms, very concerned big brother Beary looking on, I high-tailed it into the car. A couple of quick phone calls with girlfriends whose kids have had awful falls of late, and those I was now apparently not going for drinks with and we were at our local hospital. The triage nurse recommended that I take her to a bigger hospital where we could have a plastic surgery consult. Then she asked if I was okay to drive or if she should call me an Uber! Mumma inner voice: you are strong, you can do this!

Next stop huge public hospital a 20 minute drive away, where we were very efficiently seen by a {tall, handsome} nurse named Jake. As we then waited to be taken around to the paediatric ER, I thought for the millionth time that day how insanely lucky we are to have such great medical care available to us in Australia.

Once we were in paeds, we were seen by the lovey {and also incredibly handsome!} Dr Tom. {Side note: Why oh why had I only just started blowdrying my hair? Why did I have no makeup on? Why was my hair now a total birds nest and piled on top of my head in one of Love Bug’s pink hair ties, complete with sparkly butterfly? Dear Universe, when putting handsome men in front of me, please allow a girl to be prepared! But back to the story}.

I almost blew the Disneyland surprise {when we are in Paris I’m taking her to EuroDisney – but she has absolutely no idea!} when the lovely doctor wanted to give her a local anaesthetic needle. I was trying to think of a way to bribe her into having the needle. She’s always been so fine and brave with needles but recently had a vaccine which required two of those horrid big needles {given a few weeks apart} so for now she’s not overly keen on any variety of needle.

Ultimately they settled on giving her laughing gas. I can’t have laughing gas as it may as well be called vomiting gas. Turns out Love Bug is totally fine with laughing gas and giggled her way through the procedure. Two stitches in she said in quite a drowsy giggly voice Dr Tom are you reeeealllyy stitching my face, because I can’t feel it *giggle giggle*.

Once the procedure was done, and the gas had worn off, Love Bug was still super happy and friendly. The nurse asked me if she was always like this or perhaps still effected by the gas. I responded the former. Wow, she said, I haven’t met many kids like her.

Eventually we were okay to go home. Realistically a sub-5 hour turn around in a big public hospital on a Saturday evening when there’s an influenza epidemic and it’s the end of football season is somewhat of a miracle. Again, we are very lucky to have the medical care we do.

As we were walking past the paeds ER front desk, Love Bug popped her head over the desk and said a cheery thanks Dr Tom. Given the looks on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I don’t know that too many kids say thank you as they’re exiting the ER?!