Emergency Room

Emergency Room familiarity is not a goal of mine, nor of Dennis'.  But, with a rambunctious little boy like ours, I have a bad feeling that we are going to be quite familiar with the interior of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta.  After all, we had our first introduction yesterday.

It's a nice hospital, don't get me wrong, but I hope to never have reason to visit there again.  At least not for a very, very long time. 

We were enjoying a lazy day around the house and Connor was being his usual, jovial, self.  It was almost nap time so Dennis and I were looking forward a little siesta of our own.  As I've mentioned before, Connor sees very little (if any) purpose to walking through the house because you can always get from point A to point B much more quickly if you run, skip, or gallop.  So Connor was going back and forth in our entryway between Dennis and myself, showing off a backpack that he was (maybe not anymore) going to start using for school.  He looked adorable. 

He ran past me, as he often does, but tripped.  And there wasn't a lot of room between me and the corner of the wall.  Yep, you guessed it - - he fell and somehow managed to hit his sweet little forehead right on the corner of the wall.  Based on his scream and the dent left in the wall, I was very nervous.  Then I picked him up and saw his face.  Very nervous doesn't even begin to explain how I felt once I saw the blood running down his face. 

Dennis grabbed him from me and I grabbed Nunu, his back pack (because he was asking for it), some frozen peas and carrots from the freezer, a juice box, a kitchen towel and we're in the car and off to the Emergency Room.  Oh, his cut looked SO deep and there was just SO much blood.  And he was just crying and crying and crying and I was trying to keep the ice pack of frozen veggies on his head but he obviously didn't want me to do that.  Luckily for Connor, his Dad was keeping it together much better than I was. 

Half way to the Emergency Room (it's probably about 12 miles away), I asked Dennis if he would mind to please turn up the air conditioning.  He turned it up one notch.  A few minutes later I asked him if he could please REALLY turn up the AC because I felt sick.  After surveying the items in the car, the lucky backpack was my best bet.  I took the towel and veggies off of Connors head and revisited my lunch. 

It was pretty quick and painless.  At least for me.  As I had my head in the backpack, Connor kept saying, "oh no, Mommy!" over and over.

I asked Dennis if he was OK and if me being sick made him feel sick, too.  He said that, "well, let's just say it didn't really make me feel any better." 

We show up at the ER, blood over all of us, Dennis grabs Connor and I dump out the bag of puke.  What else was I supposed to do?  Leave it in the car? 

He was so nice and back to his cheery self while we waited for him to be taken care of that you would have never guessed what he had just been through.  Truly amazing, that kid. 

And...four short hours later, we leave the Emergency Room.  I didn't get the final count for the number of stitches that he received, but he was all sewn up and we were on our way to the land of recovery.  Connor was stir crazy, to say the least, so Dennis took him to car while I waited for the injury care instructions from the MD.  You would think that they could do that quickly, wouldn't you? 

I sent Dennis a text saying that I was still waiting and I was going to hurry to the car as quickly as I could and his text response was, "we're going to run to the gas station.  Your car says 0 miles to empty." Oh crap.  There were a lot of stop lights between the hospital and the nearest gas station.  Luckily, Dennis made it there on fumes, I guess.  God was really pulling for us yesterday afternoon even though I hadn't done the basics of car maintenance (get gas!) to ensure our survival through the event. 

It's amazing how much worse it is when you child gets sick, hurt, or is danger.  I am so glad Dennis had his head on straight because I was a total wreck and I still cringe as I replay Connors fall into the corner in my head over and over and over...  I love that little man and I'm seriously considering bubble tape and a helmet to prevent him from future injuries.  He's 200% boy and that scares me to death! 

I don't care if he looks nerdy in helmets and bubbletape.  At least he'll be safe(r).  No football or contact sports ...