Monday, January 9, 2012

911, Police, Fire or Medical?

Soooo, how was everyone's Holiday Seasons?  Good?  Good Christmas?  Good New Years?
Yea, we were doing great... having a fun time... until Saturday.  *siiiiigh*

Wife:  Lets go tobogganing!
Kids:  YAY!
SeniorK:  Oh, do I have to?
Wife:  Yes you have to!  You will have a great time!
Me:  Oh, do I have to?
Wife:  We take them every year.  It will be fun.
Look at all the ice on the hill... I'm sure nothing will go wrong!
And we were having fun!  Bing *loved* the tobogganing!  We were going down the hill together have a great time!  He was laughing and screaming the whole time.  But notice in the picture above... look at the hill conditions... pure ice.  Oh the toboggan runs were awesome!  SO fast!  It was actually raining ICE this morning, and the sleds and coats were becoming brittle as they got covered in a thick layer of ice.

So who knew that this ice covered fast as heck hill would lead to this?

So not gonna be happy that I posted this.
SeniorK:  Hey!  Watch this!  I'm gonna hit that JUMP at the bottom of the hill!
Me:  Wow!  Awesome height!  You must have been like 5 feet in the air there!
SeniorK:  YEAAAAAHHH!!! OOH YEAAAAAHHHHH!
*I leave to go play with Lukai*
Wife:  I missed it!  Can you do it again?
SeniorK:  Sure!  
*shoosh*
*whack*
*thud*
Wife:  K?!  K?!
Me:  Hey, why is everyone running to SeniorK?  And why isn't he moving?

From 40-feet away, I can see the Wife making the International Call 911 sign.  It looks a lot like a penguin trying to do crotchet.  One-Two-Perl-Two... or something.  Anyway, I call 911 and the Ambulance comes and takes him away on a stretcher.

He probably won't remember any of this anyway...
Now, I've whacked myself in the head a few times, and I was a some what rough and tumble kid.  I thought he would simply jump up, go "Ta-DA!" and carry on playing.  But he was out cold!  When he eventually did regain consciousnesses his eyes were wandering all over the place and now really focusing on anything.  It took a couple of minutes for the ambulance to arrive, and by the time they got there, SeniorK was talking... but not making any sense.  He was kind of babbling and repeating himself over and over again.  He had forgotten that we had Christmas, and was obviously confused about which town we were in.

Boy it sucks as a parent seeing your child like that.

A couple hours later, he was done being x-rayed and scanned and poked and prodded, and left with a diagnosed Concussion.

And though all this, I had a couple of 'ah-ha' moments.

I know I've said it before, but:

  1. Both times we have needed Ambulances have been when the Wife was watching the kids (this just makes me feel better... like I'm the "good" parent*).
  2. What would the social worker say if this happened to one of our adopted children?
  3. We can never take anything for granted, especially the health of our loved ones.
* = my co-worker pointed out that "You never break any dishes if you don't wash the dishes either"... I'm sure it was very profound in her native Chinese.  But its a good point.  Laws of Averages would lend itself to my wife damaging the children more than me just by sheer volume of activities.  So maybe I'm NOT the "good"er parent.


8 comments:

  1. How is your Son doing?? Where did you guys go on the weekend??

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  2. I hope your son is doing okay now! What a scary moment! With five children, we've spent plenty of time in ER/Doctor's offices. Things can happen in a blink of an eye and with you right there. The scary part of parenting! Or at least ONE of the scary parts!

    Love the smile on your little guy's face!

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  3. First, I'm sorry you went through this. Truly. That must have been horribly scary. But you are very right that living life IS taking a chance. Two years ago I watched a girl get a concussion playing a pre-season basketball game. She fell and somehow whacked her head just right. She lay there twitching and they called in an ambulance. (Earlier in the school year I'd seen ambulances come on the field two or three times during soccer games for potential head injuries and other.) About a year ago my then-6-year-old niece took a tumble down her stairs and was non-responsive and twitching for a little while. My sister called an ambulance. Fortunately, she was better by then and they did not diagnose a concussion. I don't think they even took her to the hospital, though I can't quite remember for sure now. (I am scared silly some days of my little one falling down our quite tall, all wood stairs!) And while working with a child many years ago I took her sledding. We were going down a hill together on a small round sled one particular trip. The hill was quite steep so I had my hands out to each side to keep us going more slowly and, therefore, keep the child safe. Except, her foot popped out of the sled and got jammed in the snow and the sled with our combined weight on it hit her leg and actually gave her a fracture. I've never been quite the same since then, learning the hard way that even when we are being careful an accident can happen.

    By the way, go give your wife a(nother) hug. I'm sure she could still use some after that fright.

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  4. Wow! What a moment...beyond scary! I hope Senior K is doing better!

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  5. Don't even want to imagine being in your shoes during that. Sending prayers for a full, quick recovery.

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  6. That must have been SO SCARY! So glad that everything (I think) turned out ok.

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  7. WOW! THAT's too much excitement! HOpe he is doing better now.

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  8. I'm sure monsieur K will be even *more* thrilled when he discovers no TV, no video game and no computer while his brain recovers ...

    No reading for the first few days to a week, either. E found that part the hardest when he had his concussion three years ago!

    Hope K recovers really quickly.

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