Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Off To The Hospital We Go...

Yesterday was quite possibly the worst day of my life. It started off great. I got lots of work done around the house: laundry, painting... but it all went down hill very quickly. We were expecting some friends over for dinner and when our first guest arrived (after a long flight across the country) our eldest decided to show off by jumping on the couch. I'm sure you can see where this is going already, right? Granted, it was totally my fault, because in preparation for our guests, I moved my son's naughty chair from it's designated corner in the dining room, to an empty space conveniently next to the couch. Easy access, right? I didn't even think about the damage that might ensue. Anyway, after several warnings to my son to be careful on the couch, I tended to our guest. As soon as I turned my back away I heard a THUMP and a cry.

My son was on this back (on the hardwood, of course) screaming. I immediately ran and picked him up and put him on my lap. I wanted to see if he was bleeding or bruised anywhere. My son is a BIG head bonker. He does it all the time without issue. This time, however, it was very different. As soon as I picked my son up, his body tensed, he made a low groan, and then started to have a seizure. I immediately screamed for my husband to call 9-1-1...and he approached me (this part I don't remember...) and as he approached me to find out what happened, I wound my arm up to slap him. I guess he wasn't calling 9-1-1 fasted enough and I felt I needed to slap some sense into him??? By the time my husband had made his way over to us, my son has stopped "seizing", and was conscious, but definitely out of sorts. The ambulance came shortly thereafter and did a preliminary scan, making sure he didn't have any neck or back injuries. Then they said, "we're gonna have to take him to the hospital just to be sure everything is okay".

Now, this is not my son's first trip to the emergency room. When he was four months old, he flung himself off the change table and again, landed on the hard wood. I knew the drill. Head injury = emergency room. My son was, at first, a little skeptical about the trip in the ambulance. The attendants strapped his car seat on to the gurney in the back and kept a close watch on my son as we made the trip to the hospital. No siren, much to my son's chagrin. Thankfully, as we left our guests behind at our house, the trip to the emergency room was extremely short and painless. The doctor checked for internal bleeding and any bumps - neither which he had and said that he was good to go. I guess he thought the concussion was mild, so I wouldn't need to wake him up every couple of hours in the middle of the night and that was that.

My son was most perturbed that the ambulance wasn't going to take him back to his house and he had to be schlepped back home in our stinky ol' car but all that really mattered was that he was okay. There's nothing more scary than a) having your child hit their head b) having your child have a seizure c) having your child feel like a wet noodle as you carry them around. Thankfully all is well.

When we returned, our gracious guests had dinner ready on the table for us! (Thanks guys!) I guess, although it wasn't initially in their plans, it wasn't just a typical Saturday night for them either, right?

As an aside, I checked my son several times in the middle of the night for fear that he might not be as okay as the doctor expected. I had thoughts of strokes and other things of the sort. Thankfully when he woke up this morning he was a-okay and ready for some more couch jumping.

So kids, what have we learned from this here lesson?

1) Don't let your kids jump on the couch

2) Don't put any sort of climbing apparatus near the couch to encourage said couch jumping

3) If someone in your house asks you to call 9-1-1, don't ask questions, just DO IT for fear of getting slapped

PS - I just realized that I'm quite possibly the WORST story telling in the history of story-telling. Let me address the seizure bit...which was a heavy concern of mine and I'm not sure why I didn't mention the reasoning behind it when I originally posted this...

The episode is called "post-concussive seizure" and the ambulance attendant assured me that it was just my son's body's way of dealing with the trauma, and that it wouldn't affect him in the long-term. Phew. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.