Saturday, November 6, 2010

Not What I Had Planned ...

What's the expression? Something like "When man plans, G-d laughs." 

I didn't have huge plans for Friday, but I did have a To-Do list that included getting a shower and various other things that needed doing. 

I woke up moving slowly as the weeks have piled on lately and my pain levels are higher than I can generally tolerate without needing meds. I was finally ready to hit the shower when Scott called me to say Ellie's after-school program had called him: "Ellie's had an accident." 

That phrase for me lately means Ellie needs a fresh change of clothes, and I was sighing that she'd apparently gone through her emergency clothes at school and must need a new set dropped off. And then he finished the sentence with, "And they wanted permission to call 911 because there's a lot of blood, so I'm heading over to the ER to wait for her to come by ambulance."

Ack. 

It's good to know my husband sometimes panics as much as I do. :-) He'd dashed out without asking any other questions. I immediately jumped into clothes, skipping that shower I really needed, and headed off to the ER to meet them. It did cross my mind to suggest that one of us go to the school and one to the ER, but I just assumed if they were worried enough to call 911, it meant she was going to need to be transported.

Traffic was nasty, so it must have taken me 30 minutes to get to the hospital (and it felt like hours). Scott was pacing outside in the ER's ambulance drop off area when I got there, and I had just about enough time to park, gather my stuff and get out of the car when Scott got another phone call from the school to say that the paramedics had come and Ellie had a small, but deep, laceration that probably should get looked at but didn't need an ambulance ride unless we were set on it. 

And we weren't, of course. We decided to leave one car at the hospital and drive together to the school to get Ellie. And of course, it's in the early part of rush hour by then and traffic was even nastier so what's a 15 minute drive in good traffic took closer to 30. 

When we got there, Ellie was sitting in the office with a paramedic, the director of the after-school program, the school principal, and the school office first aid whiz (who did her best to soak Ellie's blood-soaked shirt after Ellie told her it was her favorite one -- wow!). They had given Ellie a clean shirt to wear, and while she wasn't her normal bouncy self, she was very calm and everyone was praising how great she had handled everything. (The paramedic told us we had an amazing kid, and I just had to agree!)

Ellie had fallen off the "tower" on the play structure and managed to hit her head on a metal bar on the way down. Ellie wasn't entirely sure of the details, although it could have had something to do with a red jump rope she had tied to something and might have been using to climb down, maybe.  In addition to the cut on the back of her head, which required three stitches, Ellie also bit her tongue during the fall. At the hospital, she kept saying nothing hurt, but when we went to feed her dinner finally (at 8 p.m.!), she barely ate anything because she kept saying the food hurt her tongue. 


So the accident happened at about 3:30 p.m., and the call to Scott must have happened within ten minutes, and he immediately called me. We finally got home about 8:30 p.m., did the quickest of bedtime routines (which still took 30 minutes, and I'm not sure if the dried blood got cleaned off her neck, back and limbs or if she talked Scott until waiting to do that until morning. 


We'll be on the lookout for signs of concussion, but the doctor seemed to think she was low risk and I hope is right. 


Meanwhile, I once again made good use of my gift shelf, grabbing a package of Disney fairy figurines to take with that she played with at the hospital, and when she was really scared of the stitches, I promised to reward bravery with an extra present at home, so she also got a (Disney) Jasmine doll that's Barbie size. 


It's amazing what the burst of adrenaline when you think your child is injured can get you through, but man, the crash when the emergency is over is just ... draining. Off to bed for me ...

3 comments:

slfisher said...

Scalp wounds bleed like a mofo. Glad she's ok.

Anonymous said...

I glad your Baby is OK. Scary.
mo

Sherril said...

Poor baby. Glad she's OK!