Powered By Blogger

Saturday, March 3, 2012

My First Real Panic

Looking down at myself in the E.R., I saw that I was splotched with blood. I was in my pajamas with tennis shoes haphazardly thrown on - laces untied. One of Daddy's hoodies was thrown on. I was presentable, but by no means in anything I'd want people to see me in. And I was bloody.

Sydney was even worse. He had large patches of blood on his shirt - all down the front, smeared across the shoulders, and dripping on to his pants. He was in socks. I remember telling Daddy not to worry about putting his shoes on, but to grab his cheddar bunnies, water bottle, my wallet, and his yi-yi.

The evening started off much differently. It was Friday - hallelujah! It had been a long week, and SoLs are next week, and I needed a few days to forget about school. Syd was in a delightful mood. Each night, we eat dinner and then we have music time where we dance, play Chase, wrestle, and tickle. Daddy was relaxing on the floor while I had a tickle fight with Syd. He stood up to walk down the hall, tripped over my leg, and had a vicious all-out brawl with the bookshelf.

The bookshelf won.

Instantly, blood started pouring down his face. I grabbed my handkerchief I'd been using and tried to staunch the flow. I knew what was going on, but Daddy didn't, so he understandably was a little panicky as I barked orders to him - Ice! Red rag! Get the liquid bandage!

Syd fought the red rag. It was hanging in his face, he hurt, and he couldn't see. He didn't know what was going on. So, I moved the rag out of his face, told him very calmly he had fallen on to the bookshelf and had an owie, and then started telling him a story about Milo the Elephant, Barnaby the Train, and Sarah the Horse.

No idea where that came from, but he started listening and calmed down. The bleeding slowed, then stopped.

It was disGUSTing. A very clean slice straight through to the skull.

It was a year ago. Almost exactly, as tomorrow is Zane's third birthday. We were getting ready for Zane's birthday party and Mommy was eating a peanut butter sandwich while Daddy was in the shower. I gave Syd a mere pinky-fingernail sized bite of the sandwich. Within seconds, he started scratching his eye. In the next few moments, he started to swell until the first eye was swollen shut and the entire left side of his face was getting puffy.

I had one split second of indecision. Do I yell for Daddy? Do I get a cold-compress? I grabbed the Benedryl and gave him a half teaspoon. Then, I yelled for Daddy and called the doctor. We ended up going to the E.R. for that, too.

Last night, I did not falter. Syd was bleeding profusely and I was the first with him. It is actually rather ironic as Steve and I enjoy the sitcom Whitney. This past week's episode was about couples and who has the fight and who has the flight instinct. The result, after 30 minutes of comedy, is that we each have our strengths and weaknesses, and they balance each other out.

Daddy was panicking. He started driving a little too fast. I reminded him that Syd was ok for now and we needed to get to the hospital safely. We got there, got checked in, triaged, and waited. It was then that I started to shake. Almost uncontrollably.

Thank heavens the Friday night crew was fresh. Yes, it took 4 hours, but the nurse was wonderful, the child life specialist did a fabulous job keeping Syd distracted, taking him for walks in the halls, and even talking to me about how she got her job - news for my seniors... And the doctor was the same we'd seen a year ago. She is unbelievably calm, soothing, straight-forward, but not condescending. If it weren't for the fact that it was 3 hours past Syd's bedtime by the time we left, I think we may have even been a bit jolly.

But the fact of the matter is we were all tired, and Daddy and I were drained. Syd didn't like pulling his shirt off over his head. I had to put him in a button-up today. And his stitches will hopefully not scar. But if nothing else, he already looks so much like his Daddy, we joke (already! I know!) that he couldn't go much longer without getting the matching scar that Daddy got when he was 4. Also from a fall.

What's really crazy is that Syd remembered his last visit because he asked if he could push the bed. The nurses pushed him in the bed to the room where they treated his peanut allergy. I never expected him to recall that at the tender age of 18 months.

Syd took a much needed LONG nap today and is finally eating again. I'm sure things will be fine, but he definitely gave us a scare last night. Let's just make the visits a little more spread out than once a year...

1 comment:

  1. Omigosh! That is a scary thing to experience. Poor guy! At least he'll have a very manly battle scar to show off someday!

    ReplyDelete