It was an ordinary weekend which turned into one of those that you simply just want to forget and put behind you.
Sunday afternoon, we had a big seafood BBQ (Christmas in July was the theme) at a friends place – so the wife, myself and the kids packed up and migrated there for the day.
Around 6pm my youngest daughter crawled up onto an office chair to do some drawing at a desk – she loves drawing and colouring in (she’s 3 btw). When she wanted to get down again she slid off the chair, but as she was about to put her feet down the chair must have pushed backwards and she lost her footing, dropping the few inches/cms to the ground. Unfortunately what also happened was that while loosing her footing she knocked her head on the table edge.
No major outcry – so it couldn’t have been that bad a knock. Or so we thought.
30mins after coming home she started mumbling and throwing up – 5 times she threw up within 10 minutes.
We checked her for bumps and bruises but couldn’t see any but the wife, ever vigilant, asked me to look up concussions for children and we found that she matched 2-3 of the symptoms.
so the wife called the after hours emergency services and after a brief discussion was told to bring Blair into the emergency room.
Since we have two kids, one of us had to go and the other stay with the oldest. The wife went. On the way to the emergency room, my youngest threw up once more.
Anyways, wife managed to get her bundled into the emergency room and sat down for a bit of a wait – there wasn’t that many there, but it soon filled up.
After two ops sessions my wife was told that they had to keep my daughter overnight and she needed to have a drip inserted – urggghh…Blair isn’t too keen on needless to put it mildly. She categorises doctors into two categories – good doctors, who doesn’t do needless/jabs and bad doctors, who does do needless/jabs.
The wife sits down to wait as there has to be a bed “free” first.
In the meantime she calls me to ask her to bring her an overnight bag so i drop my oldest off at a friends place while i drive down to the hospital with it. Get back home and pick up the oldest again. Now, it’s nearly 11pm.
at 1:30am they still hadn’t seen a doctor…2:30am passes by..finally, at 3:30am a doctor shows up after an examination it was judged that my daughter had gotten a mild concussion from the knock on the head.
I have to admit I admire my wife’s vigilance and her stamina – sitting upright for that amount of time, holding a child, is hardly a walk in the park.
At around 11am or so, a third examination is done and since Blair’s perked up to her regular, normal self, she’s sent home.
I know kids are resilient but the slight knock rocked her enough to concuss her head – needless to say, no more climbing chairs in the near future. The scare alone is enough to make a parent grow old overnight!
Luckily she’s back on her feet again, drawing and just being a happy child again – but it was a scare that we’d rather have missed out on…Nothing sets those parental emotions into swing as much as these types of incidents.