Friday, July 8, 2011

Head Wounds & Hospitals

So the next big emergency that happened (as if dealing with a flooded basement wasn't enough) was Rowan's trip to the emergency room!

Liam and Rowan were outside playing in a trailer we've got parked in the driveway.  It's a flatbed trailer with built up sides.  It's empty except for the toys the boys have been loading in it.  They've been pretending to fish with these heavy duty sand pails that have ropes attached to them (they've been made into stilts, you stand on the upside down bucket and hold the ropes to keep the buckets on your feet while you walk).  Liam can climb in and out of the trailer easily enough but Rowan is too short and uncoordinated to get in and out on his own.  Liam can boost him into the trailer but he can't get Rowan out again.

So after swimming lessons and a full day of work (for me) and daycare (for the boys) they were playing outside while I was in the kitchen making dinner (basically I told them to get outside and leave me alone so I could get dinner done faster).  Neil wasn't home yet, he'd been working late the last couple of nights.

So I look out the window to check on the boys every few minutes and they're playing happily in the trailer (no doubt catching plenty of salmon).  I had turned back to making dinner for less than a minute when I heard Rowan start to cry (I ignored it to begin with because one or the other of them is always crying, don't judge me, I know you do it with your kids too).  Then Liam is at the door bawling and yelling for me to come help.  I go to the door and ask him what's wrong and through sobs and tears he tells me Rowan is bleeding, but he wouldn't tell me where he was bleeding from or how badly.

So I calmly put my shoes on, telling Liam to calm down, and head outside to assess the damage.  At this point I'm pretty sure the details are being exaggerated and it's nothing more than a scratch.  However, once I get closer to Rowan I can see that it's not a scratch and there's blood everywhere!  His neck and shirt are covered in blood and when I pull him out of the trailer I can see that the blood is seeping through his baseball cap and running down his head.  At this point I figure I've got a serious head injury on my hands and both the boys are crying and upset so I know I've got to keep my cool and not freak out or it'll just scare them even more.

I carry Rowan into the house trying to decide if I should remove his cap to see just how bad it is, I immediately decide against this because I'm seeing visions of a chunk of his scalp peeling from his head and know I won't be able to deal with that.  So I make the decision to take him to the hospital.  I grab my purse and keys and load the kids into the car.  I did remember to chain up the dog so she wouldn't run away or get hit on the highway, but I forgot to lock the house and turn off the oven (thankfully, it was just warming up and I hadn't actually put dinner in to cook yet)!

The whole 10 minute drive into the hospital Liam is asking if Rowan will need a needle or stitches or if he's going to die... I really just wanted to tell him to shut up because I was wondering all of that myself, but I remained calm and assured both of them that the doctors and nurses would take good care of Rowan.  Surprisingly, Rowan did very well and only sniffled and whimpered a few times during the drive and when I asked him how he was feeling he said "Good" in this quiet, sweet little voice.

I had texted Neil and left him a voicemail message but I didn't know if he had his phone on him, he tends to leave it in the truck while he's working so that he doesn't get interrupted every 10 minutes.  I just kept hoping that he'd get my messages soon and meet us at the hospital.

Once we arrived at the ER the nurse asked me how bad it was and I confessed that I wasn't sure because I hadn't removed the cap yet.  She smiled at me and said she wouldn't have removed it either if he was her kid.  But she sat him down on the gurney and had him take the cap of himself. 

Once the cap was off you could see that it wasn't as bad as it looked, in fact, you couldn't even see the cut for all the hair covering it.  The doctor came in almost immediately and did a cursory examination but Rowan wouldn't let anyone touch him but me and when the doctor mentioned trying to glue and bandage the cut Rowan freaked out and kept saying "I no want to Mommy, I no want to".  It almost broke my heart :(

So the doctor asked the nurse to give him some kind of medication that would calm him down.  It was in a syringe that she squirted up his nose (that was fight too, to keep him still and his hands away from his face so she could administer it).  In less than 10 minutes he was dopey and glassy eyed and we proceeded to clean the blood from his hair and from around the cut.

It turned out that the cut was only a half and inch long and not very deep (it's true what they say, that head wounds bleed far worse than a similar cut on any other part of the body)!  So in the end the doctor decided not to glue it, or even bandage it.  He just instructed me to leave it for 24 hours before washing his hair so that it would have a chance to start healing itself.  It was actually a pretty anticlimactic end to an otherwise terrifying situation!

Now, if Rowan ever decides to shave his head he'll have a badass scar to show off!

It turns out what happened was; Rowan wanted out of the trailer and Liam was trying to help him but they couldn't get him out.  So Liam got angry and frustrated with the situation and used one of the pails I mentioned earlier to take his frustration out on his little brother.  Now, we've been working with Liam to help him figure out a way to manage his anger better, but apparently all of the work we've done flew out the window and he started beating his little brother with this pail (believe me, my chest tightens and my throat chokes just thinking about it).  So Rowan not only has a gash on his head but there's also 3 or 4 bruises on his back and shoulders from being hit with this heavy plastic pail.

None the less, Liam was pretty scared during that ride into the hospital.  Hopefully he'll remember that next time he feels frustrated and angry, no matter what the situation.  I've been talking with him daily since this happened and I've been trying to instill in him the difference between good and bad choices.  He is only 4 years old and he's still dealing with his emotions in a reactionary way so I'm sure I've got a lot of work ahead of me, but he's starting school in 2 months and I don't want this kind of thing happening on the playground (obviously).

Sigh, I'm sure I'm not raising a serial killer or anything, but sometimes I wonder just what is going through that little red head!

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