Julia broke her nose!

Yes, you read right..... Julia broke her nose this afternoon. Sigh..... and it was such a nice, relaxing day up until then!

How does a 4 yr old break her nose, you ask? Well, I was wrangling with Jude when I look over and see Julia standing on the arm of a chair, leaning heavily on a bookshelf. I tell her "You need to get down before you fall and hurt yourself!". About 2 seconds later, the shelf flipped (just the shelf, not the whole bookcase, it is anchored to the wall.), and the heavy crystal votive holder that was on that shelf came crashing down right on the bridge of Julia's nose.

Julia screamed and cried. I got an ice pack (while biting my tongue to keep from saying "See, I say these things for a reason!").

After a few minutes Julia calms down and I get a good look at her nose. There is definitely a lump/knot on the left side of the bridge of her nose. It is also quite tender. I debated what I should do. Do I take her to the ER for x-rays? Do I just wait a day or two and see if it gets any worse? I finally decide that it should be looked at. I was worried that her breathing might be affected later in life. (I know too many people who broke their nose as kids/young adults, but just let it heal naturally and now have breathing/sinus issues.)

I call the pedi, just to see if they can look at it, instead of having to go to the ER. Luckily, they told me to come right in. By the time we got there, I almost felt silly for taking her in, because she was back to acting her rambunctious self. The dr. looked first to make sure she did not have head trauma, then studied her nose. At one point he was pushing on it pretty hard to try to manipulate it.

His verdict was that it seemed cracked/broken to him. The break itself did not concern him, it was the wondering if it was knocked out of alignment. It is when the nose is not straight when you have the breathing issues. With the nose being swollen already, it was hard to tell how straight it was. We go back on Thursday for a re-check. By then he will be able to tell if the nose is healing straight or if we will need to be sent to an ENT to have it fixed and set properly.

The big lump/knot went mostly away when the dr. was manipulating it straight. So the pictures I took of it tonight don't look too bad. I think she is going to end up with black eyes, but she is being a real trooper.




I think this is the best picture of showing the lump/swelling and the eyes turning black and blue already.