First ER visit

Most definitely not a good parenting milestone, but one for the memory books nonetheless: we made our first ever trip to the ER as parents this weekend. Ironically, 8.5 years into parenting with two older boys, and Lorelai is the one who finally broke our ER-free streak. :(

After her bath on Saturday night, she was running from the bathroom to our bed at full speed with her towel wrapped around her, and tripped over a shirt on the floor. Her forehead broke her fall into our metal bed frame.

 

This was a few hours and LOTS of ice later. Thank goodness
for the ice because the swelling was SO much worse initially.

I was only a few steps behind her, so I pulled her up immediately and literally saw a dent in her forehead that was black with an immediate bruise. And then it started to swell, BAD. Adam immediately ran downstairs to get some ice, and I frantically screamed at him to hurry because it was huge and purple with a now bloody dent in the middle. It was horrifying.

Adam was beside himself with panic, and we were both legitimately worried she'd cracked her skull based on how hard she fell and how bad it looked. He freaked the freak out (I'm not criticizing. I get it, really) and called 911 for an ambulance before I could convince him we could just drive her to the ER on our own since she was concious and breathing and the blood wasn't bad. So he hung up on 911 (duh! you don't do that ever!) but when they called back, I told them we didn't need it.

Aidan had just gotten out of the shower when this all happened so he walked in to our room to see two frantic parents, and a screaming baby sister with a nasty head injury, so he proceeded to freak the freak out as well. Poor thing was crying so bad, he could barely figure out what clothes to put on.

As we were scrambling to get Lorelai's clothes on, I dialed my mom and handed to phone to Logan so I could finish getting her dressed while Adam held the ice on her. For some reason, Logan took the phone to Aidan who was incoherent (my mom thought it was me crying--I can only imagine the terrible thoughts going through her head with a phone call like that) but I was able to tell her the situation and get her to meet us ASAP at the ER so she could take the boys.

With Adam yelling things like skull fracture, brain damage and brain bleed, it's understandable why Aidan was so worked up and Logan was kind of in shock (I don't think he cried, he just got very quiet). As I begged Adam to calm down, I kept repeating to the kids (poor sweet Lorelai included) that everything was going to be ok. I was saying it out loud for myself as much as anyone else, because I don't think I've ever been that panicked (not including in-utero scares) as a parent that something was wrong. Although I'm still amazed that I was the calm one in this scenario, for the record.

It didn't take much more than 20/25 minutes to get to the ER, but Lorelai was pretty lethargic during the ride, although she was never unresponsive. This was very scary, because even though it was her bedtime, she's never that tired at 7:30 at night. Adam kept telling her to stay awake and she would quietly mumble "ok Daddy." Meanwhile, in the back, Aidan was still crying a little, but Logan was rubbing on his arm to comfort him.

My mom was already waiting outside the ER when we pulled up, so she took the boys home right away. She later told me that Aidan had trouble getting the bad thoughts out of his head to go to sleep. :(

Thankfully, we didn't have to wait long to be seen, and not long after, Lorelai started to perk up. Her pupils looked good and she was chatting almost happily about the Nickelodeon shows they put on while we waited. She kept saying her head hurt and wanted to go home, but wouldn't lay down, because "that's not my bed."

Both the resident and pediatric specialist agreed she was fine--no concussion (she never lost consciousness) or any other kind of brain injury (fun fact: apparently brain bleeds are uncommon in children in falls like this), and they were even pleasantly surprised that the wound didn't even need surgical glue as they originally suspected.

 

The nurse put the numbing cream on this cotton ball and said it
looked like she was growing a unicorn horn. Lorelai liked that :)

They numbed her for a while then cleaned her wound and all she needed was some steri-strips and a band-aid. And a grape popscicle, of course. Absolutely necessary to the healing process. :)

We were home by 10:30pm and she slept soundly until almost 7:45am, at which point she was reunited with two boys who were VERY happy to see that their girl was ok. And who were very willing to take it easy with her and do their best to try to convince her to take it easy for the whole day--a tough thing to do with an active 2.5 year old!

Going in for some hugs. Lots of love and snuggles all around on Sunday.

Of course, in hindsight, part of me questioned going in the first place, thinking we freaked out over nothing. But the resident put my mind at ease saying we did the right thing and he would have done the same if it were his child. Even though ERs aren't cheap, that peace of mind was priceless, since we couldn't see into her brain to know she was okay in the same way we could look at a simple wound. That's why the doctors get paid the big bucks, I guess. :)

As traumatizing as that was for all of us, I know that it could have been SO much worse. I keep having flashbacks and thinking that if she had been just inches off, she could have broken her nose or her teeth. But she's clearly a tough girl--probably tougher than either of her parents were about the whole situation! And very lucky.

In fact, this minor crisis showed me how lucky we ALL are. Lorelai is lucky to have a doting father who would have moved heaven and earth to get her to the hospital faster, if he could. She's lucky to have two older brothers who care so deeply about her. Aidan's lucky to have a brother like Logan who instinctively comforted him when he was upset. We're lucky to have my mom so close and so willing to drop everything to be there for us. And I'm beyond lucky to have an amazing family so filled with love. I couldn't stand it if something happened to any one of them.