What a {Headache}

While at work today, Tanner and another girl tripped over each other and she landed on him as he hit his head pretty hard on the concrete floor.  He's a pretty dramatic kid when he wants to be, so the nursery workers didn't think to come get me right away...after an hour of him complaining that his head hurt, they finally couldn't take it anymore, and so I took my screaming 6 year old home...poor kid!

On the way, I called our pediatrician's office to talk to a nurse to see what, if anything, I could do for the poor kid.  I could tell it was really hurting him...but had to leave a message.  Upon getting home and checking our little medicine box, the Tylenol we had was WAY expired, so I called Ryan at work to see if he'd grab some on his way home, however, he had already left.

As a last resort, I texted (interesting how that's a word, yet it's not a word so I added it to spellcheck's dictionary.) my good friend, who also happens to be our pediatrician's wife, and asked what she would do given the circumstances, and the fact that I was having a hard time keeping Tanner awake, and that he was throwing up...In my mind, I was trying to decide if he'd be fine until Ryan got home, or if I should drag all the kids into the ER.  Triage.  Which would be worse?  Instead of telling me what she would do, she called her husband.  Well, that works, too. 

I watched for signs of a concussion, but his eyes weren't dilated, and I figured he just had a really bad headache.

Then, as Ryan walked in the door, our pediatrician called to tell us to get to the ER; he phoned ahead and told them we were coming...so we scooped up Tanner and I very quickly drove to the ER.  The doctor's office called me back en route, to which I replied a 'thanks, but your doctor already personally called me, and we're on our way!' then hung up so I could whip through a green left-hand turn as his speech was REALLY starting to slur and not make sense...he was in and out and his face was super pale.  WHY is the Emergency Entrance on the back side of the hospital?!

Thankfully the check-in desk has lovely mauve puke buckets, just the right color to make you want to throw up.  LOL!  So while we waited an impressive 2 minutes, and I filled out paperwork, Tanner unloaded the remnants of his lunch.  Now I was REALLY feeling bad.  And a touch uptight.

The nurse immediately asked what happened, I spilled the above story, had to call my boss' boss to confirm a timeline of when the accident actually happened (1:30 pm? and here it was almost 3:30pm?) then they popped him a Zofran.

And he slept.  and woke.  and slept and woke.

And slept. and woke.  Then got checked out by the ER doctor (my visiting teacher's dad - small world!) and then waited. and waited. and waited.  For us to get a CT scan..

Tanner was very brave, and instead of taking an hour (like the guy after him...I heard it all since the door between our room and the CT room was VERY hollow) it took all of 2 minutes!  Way to go, CHAMP!

Then we waited.  and waited.  and waited for another hour to pass by, (along with all the crazies there this afternoon...boy, there were some doosies!) till I was showed the results of the  CT scan....super cool, by the way, and I wish I would have asked to take a picture of them...he would have LOVED to see what the inside of his head looked like!

Nothing to worry about, just a strong, thick-headed little boy who's going to have a massive headache for the next week or so.  *sigh of relief!!!*

I guess we're going to lay low and take it easy.  And invest in Tylenol.  And insurance.

__________

At some point while we were waiting, and Tanner was in and out, he sat up startled and started crying, "I don't want to live anywhere else, mommy!  I want to stay with you and daddy!"  Poor kid thought I was going to leave him at the hospital!


In the car on the way there, when I was telling him that the doctor would take a picture of his brain, he looked like I had told him they were going to cut into it!!!  I had to explain how they have a big machine that can see inside his head, but it doesn't hurt...he could just think I was taking a picture of his cute smile with my camera, yadda, yadda, yadda...and he fell asleep before I finished.

I'm so glad that he's okay!!!  While this little field trip was a headache, I gained some appreciation for my rambunctious and lively little boy.