1. Earlier this summer I was thinking to myself, "It's a little strange that we've never had to take a kid to the ER given the number of kid-years we've lived through." (The kid-years total is a little more than 48. And yes, that's foreshadowing.)
2. This morning we biked over to the pool. Stella and Pete are starting swim lessons on Monday, and today was the little pre-test. It took about 5 minutes, and then we went out to the playground. I sat down in the shade with my knitting, but a few minutes later there was an enormous thud. A worried-looking boy tried to explain: "He...um...fell."
Petely loves to climb up high. This time, though, he lost his grip. (I blame the wet bathing suit, I think.) He fell about seven feet, smacking down hard on a metal platform. He was lying still, crying weakly.
3. Oh, you guys, I didn't know what to do. Ambulance? Taxi to the doctor's office? Could I move him safely? The good news was that he could move and talk, but he was clearly hurt -- a giant goose egg on his scalp (more the size of a goose nest than a goose egg, actually), and God knows what happening beneath it. He didn't know where he was or how he had come to be there. He didn't know my name (he knew I was his mom, but he couldn't come up with Jamie); he didn't know his address. He said, "I don't remember anything. I only know that I'm Pete." I got an ice pack from the first aid office and just held him for a few minutes. His brain seemed to unfog: he could name everybody in his family and say where we lived. He remembered the swim test. But nothing more.
4. I decided that it was not an ambulance situation, and that the fastest way to a doctor was via bicycle. I loaded Pete into the bike trailer next to Stella, leaving his bike for later retrieval. He cried when I eased on his helmet, but I was not about to leave it off. At home I called family practice. They recommended that we go to the ER. In the few minutes it took me to talk to the nurse, Pete had drifted off to sleep on the couch. I hustled Alex out of the shower and left him in charge; I scooped Pete into my arms. He looked around the living room -- the room where he was born -- and said, "I don't know where I am. Where am I?"
5. He slept again in the ER waiting room, where we spent about an hour. I kept thinking it would be our turn next, but they kept calling other patients. (To the old man with the tremor and the chest pain: I am sorry for begrudging you prompt treatment. It's just that I was envisioning a subdural hemorrhage unfurling inside my Petely's skull. What was that Robert Altman movie about the kid who died after what seemed like a minor bump on the head? It scarred me for life, man.) He perked up markedly when he woke up, as we were being called back. He is pretty bruised, but his CT was clear. I imagine his guardian angel darting in beneath him to cushion the blow: he fell so hard, you guys.
6. I am thinking one more time about the folly of dread. I was worried about the bike ride there, which requires us to cross a couple of busy streets. I was worried that Stella would be sad about the swim test, because she doesn't love going underwater. It never crossed my mind to worry about a 15-minute playground stop. Providentially, I had compelled my 12yo to come along (thinking even as I did it that it was strange for me to insist that he come). He was able to keep Stella safe and happy while I iced Pete's head (and turned his eyes into the sunlight, willing his left pupil to react).
7. And I am thinking again about grace for the moment. I sat in that waiting room with his limp weight in my arms, imagining hematomas and surgery and spiking intracranial pressures and and and...and then I remembered that God does not offer grace to deal with hypotheticals but with realities. I said, "Oh, God, help me to be right here," and -- bam! -- the grace was palpable. I had to chase away another panicky thought: what if he never regains consciousness? Was the last thing I said to him a kind thing? I was relieved to remember that he had slipped into sleep listening to me whisper the first sorrowful mystery.
Now here's hoping we don't go to the ER for at least another 48 kid-years. Maybe 96. More quick takes at Jen's.
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