A stiff upper lip

Who knew ice skating could be so dangerous? Okay, I'm sure there have been many greater injuries sustained, but, OUCH! Stilman said he was skating backwards and lost his balance when someone skated past him real quick. Next thing he knew he was on his face with blood dripping down his chin. At first when he looked at his reflection in the glass around the rink he just saw a big gaping bloody spot and thought he'd lost a tooth, but it wasn't long before the entire ward (It was a mutual activity.) came skating over and the Young Men President told him his lip was gashed. Anyway, there was a hole on the inside where his tooth had poked through, but I think just the impact did the actual splitting of the lip. Jeff was in favor of just letting it heal on its own ("Every guy needs a cool scar or two!") and having a scary, gnarly, chewed-up lip-that-nobody'd-ever-want-to-kiss for the rest of his life, and, while that would be fine with me as long as Stilman's a teenager, I DO have dreams of him finding some nice young lady to marry someday and I've never met anyone who wanted to marry someone they didn't want to kiss a little! It took some doin', but I finally helped him see that a trip to the emergency room really was a good idea.
You can't tell from the pictures, but ya know those huge Q-tips they use to iodine everything with? The ones with the inch-long cotton tip? The whole was so deep they had the entire cotton tip up inside Stilman's face to clean it out! Yikes! It only took five stitches to stick him back together, but they had to take extra time and care to match up the lip just right so it wouldn't look goofy. They did a good job, and I think both Stilman and Jeff are pleased that he still got a good visible scar there - minus the scary, gnarly, chewed-up bit. I am pleased too!



























Maybe the most amazing part of the whole experience is the fact that this was our very first trip to the emergency room in our entire married-with-children life!