Breaking a duck

I had an Oscars-related post all planned, possibly with bonus vegetarian lasagne dinner-blogging and cute story about how hard it is to cook at exactly the witching hour with a two-year-old who had a short nap flitting around the kitchen trying to eat the fridge magnets and spilling pencils all over the floor, but then Something Else happened yesterday to (a) prevent me blogging at all and (b) push all that thrillingness on to tomorrow, probably.

What happened was, while I was upstairs about to brush Mabel's teeth preparatory to an early bedtime because she clearly needed it, and his dad was clearing up after dinner, Monkey somehow propelled himself off the back of the sofa headfirst into the carpet-over-solid-concrete floor. I heard the cry, knew it was a biggie, and was back downstairs with Mabel while he was still drawing breath for the next one, though his Dad, obviously, got there before me.

He cried and cried, but we couldn't see any blood or even a bump on his forehead, and I reckoned he was mostly still crying because it was so near bedtime and he'd had a busy day of school followed by running around with a playdate, so I finally told him I had to get Mabel to bed and asked if he wanted me to put him straight into his bed or if he wanted to play his usual pre-bedtime game of Batman with Daddy. He chose Batman, of course, though he sounded a bit shaky about it and was still intermittently crying.

I took Mabel back up, brushed her teeth, and read The Gruffalo's Child. Just before we settled down I heard Monkey and B come upstairs, but instead of the usual grousings over toothpaste and how long it had been since his last pee, I heard Monkey say, "I can't see."

Red flags started waving themselves all over my brain, obviously. I went in to clarify the situation for myself.
"Things look fuzzy, blurry? Is that it?"
"No, I can't see anything. It came and went before and now I can't see anything."
I ran downstairs and called the doctor's office, hardly even to see whether we should go, mostly just to check which hospital they recommended. I was talking to the doctor-on-call within five minutes: she sounded serious when I described the problem, and confirmed my thoughts that we should go to the further-than-just-local place, because they have a dedicated pediatric ER.

It's quite amazing, really, that I've been the mother of a son for almost five years and yet this was our first ever ER visit. We'd only been to the hospital once before in the four+ years we've lived here, and that was because Mabel needed an extra heel-prick when she was five days old and jaundiced.

We put shoes, socks, and coats over pyjamas on the kids, I silently thanked heavens that we'd had dinner already, B abandoned any notion of getting to his Monday-night choir practice, and we got on the Beltway. As we started driving I asked Monkey if he could see now, and though he sounded vague I could see his pupils alertly tracking the headlights of the passing cars, so I knew his eyes were working. Fifteen minutes later I was carrying a mostly asleep Monkey into the ER reception while B and Mabel parked the car. (I know you shouldn't let someone fall asleep if they might be concussed. I'd tried to keep him awake, but on the best of days this boy will fall asleep on a car-ride any time after 5pm, and this was not the best of days. He'd roused when we got there, so I knew he was conscious.)

Just as I was trying to spell his name for the lady at the desk, and wondering if I could get my insurance card out of my bag while still holding him (four-year-olds are longer and heavier than two-year-olds, whodathunk?), Monkey coughed a few times and then threw up his peanut-butter sandwich all over both of us. That got us a bit more attention, I think, and I mentally checked the "vomitting" box on my mental list of things that mean it's concussion.

Anyway, long story slightly shorter, the triage nurse assessed him, said it was probably not too bad - he'd perked up since the upchuck and was able to tell her how old he was and how many fingers she was holding up - once he understood that she really wanted to know the answer to such a stupid question - and sent us out to wait. Then he threw up the rest of the sandwich, and she brought us back to wait under observation where the doctors actually were. (She had thought the first vomit might have been unconnected, just because of all the crying and the car journey, but when it happened again she was more concerned that it might really be a symptom of head injury.)

Then we got into a room, where Monkey curled up on his trolley-bed and tried hard to fall asleep, while we tried to keep him awake until the doctor came. Mabel, meanwhile, was crazy-awake, providing a running commentary and asking intelligent questions about everything. (Where intelligent means asking why a lot.) The doctor asked similar questions about numbers of fingers, looked in eyes and ears, said he was probably okay and sent him for a CT scan anyway. She said it was okay to let him sleep, so the poor boy finally got to snuggle up, as best he could, and close his eyes. He was out like a light. He looked very small, curled like a comma under the thin hospital blanket. Mabel demanded nursery rhymes and walks and didn't let us dwell on things, which was probably just as well.

The CT tech took Monkey away on the trolley and B went with them while I tried to keep the relentlessly unlseepy Mabel occupied. Luckily, it didn't take too long. He slept through the whole thing - which is good because it meant they didn't need to sedate him to get him to keep his head still, but on the other hand I think if he'd been awake he would have been really interested to see the machine, and probably would have been quite good about keeping still.

We waited about twenty minutes more, and then the doctor came to tell us that the results were clear and we could go home.

Mabel finally cracked in the car, and cried all the way home. Monkey stirred a little in his booster seat but mostly just slept. We put him to bed in our bed - more for our peace of mind than his, though he does like company when sleeping - and as I lay beside him waiting for Mabel to call me away, I looked at the just-perceptible rising and falling of his shoulder and said a quiet thank-you to the God I don't believe in. Because it's polite to be grateful for what you get.

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They said to keep him home from school today and let him take it easy. I'm trying, but it's hard because he's acting like his normal, infuriating, jumping-around self. The sofa has been pushed up against the wall, but I'm sure something else will present itself to fall off if the mood takes him. But it would be nice to wait another five years before our next ER trip, thank you very much.