Rinse and Spit

On Sunday I was hanging out in my normal corner of the church (the nursery corner) and suddenly I was interrupted by Robyn's teacher carrying her down the hallway. Robyn's teacher is not a small man by any means. He is a large Polynesian and he had his hand firmly over Robyn's mouth. My first thought was, Heavens, Robyn was screaming in primary and Bro. Betham had to cover her mouth and bring her out to me. However, that didn't make any sense since Robyn is my quietest child. It only took a second glance to see that Robyn had blood all down the front of her and Bro. Betham was holding her hand over her nose trying to stem the gush of fluid. I'm not sure how it all started, but it was easy to tell that no one got control of it until well after the front of her was saturated. I took over quickly and whisked her to the bathroom where I had her hold her nose while I cleaned off her bloody arms (seriously, blood everywhere). After all skin was cleaned up, I took another look at her dress. There wasn't much I could do short of stripping her down and sending her back to class naked while I rinsed it out and I figure they frown on such things in primary, so I told her to take some tissue with her in case of another emergency and then I would take care of her dress when we got home.

I worried just a little about letting the blood sit that long, but there was no choice, so I made a call to a friend when I got home for extra suggestions about how to get blood out of satin. She suggested spit. Yep, you read correctly...spit. And preferably the spit of the same blood donor. She said something about your spit being able to break down the enzymes in your own blood, but since family members are related, you could try parents' spit as well. So, we all took a turn spitting on Robyn's dress (yes, I know our family is bizarre).



I then took it up to the tub and rinsed it really well in cold water. It seemed to take almost all the blood out. I sprayed it was some oxy clean and I will let it sit for good measure, but it seemed the spit and rinse did the job. Truthfully, I don't know how helpful the spit was, but I'll keep it in mind in the future.