Oh, is it Monday yet??

It's not often you say that, right? We had a long week here, followed by a very eventful weekend. Let's just say I'm ready to start over and try this thing again.

Here's how the drama unfolded. Saturday after lunch, Dayven took the big kids to their swim lesson while I stayed home with a grumpy, ready to nap Tate.

He called an hour later to tell me that Hadley had fallen and hit her head pretty bad. Apparently after the lesson ended, Dayven was handing Wyatt his towel since he'd gotten out first. He heard that loud whack/thud that happens when someone hits their head hard and a collective gasp and "ooooo" from the crowd. He turned to look and was horrified to see it was Hadley. He immediately heard her screaming and ran to her. Whomever had picked her up handed her over to him. They filed an incident report and the parents who witnessed it said she took two steps out of the pool and slipped and fell back (she was not running). It took him a while to settle her, but finally she calmed down so he could dress her and he got the kids to the car. He was relaying this whole story to me over the phone and we were discussing where to take her for an exam, when she started throwing up in the backseat. He was just outside our neighborhood at this point so he continued home.

I was meanwhile racing around like a chicken with my head cut-off, googling "concussion" and even calling 911 to ask advice. I finally raced outside and flagged down my neighbors to ask about the nearest emergency facility. They explained how to get to the children's express care, about 15 minutes away. When Dayven pulled into the driveway, he and Wyatt jumped out and I jumped in. I raced off toward the express care. I'm not going to lie, I was doing some very unsafe driving. She was no longer crying, but still throwing up and really listless and out of it. I raced her into the building in her vomit covered bathing suit, wrapped in a towel. They took us right back and did a neurological exam, which she passed and asked her a a series of questions, most of which she knew the answers to. Still, with the amount of vomiting and her demeanor, they referred us on to the Children's Hospital in downtown Pittsburgh. Off we went, vomit towels and all.

I did a bunch more unsafe driving maneuvers over the next 30 minutes it took me to get downtown. I was driving like a madwomen - weaving in and out of traffic, one hand on the wheel, the other reaching back, squeezing her leg and asking her to recite the alphabet, while intermittently swearing and honking at people. oh, and PRAYING. I couldn't even get coherent thoughts together so my prayers consisted of please God, please God, please God..... It was the longest drive of my life. 

When we arrived, I had the forethought to get her in the stroller this time and did the mad dash through the parking deck and hospital to get the emergency department. It was all fairly anti-climactic since they just asked me to sign in and wait for our name to be called. It's amazing how everyone else can seem so calm when I was almost out of my skin. Thankfully they called us back quickly and at least got us through triage. I'm assuming if they thought it was more serious they'd have rushed us along more quickly. All told, we saw an intake nurse, a triage nurse, a resident, a pediatrician, and an attending physician and a few random nurses in between. I re-told the story at least 10 times. She was still vomiting through it all, a total of 9 times. That was most concerning of all so they did a CT scan. The scan came back clear and they didn't see any tears or hairline fractures they were looking for. They ruled it was just a concussion and gave her some anti-nausea medication to settle her stomach. She started picking up immensely by that point. She finally drank some juice and had some crackers and by the end she was back to her happy, chipper and animated little self. We were finally released at 9:30pm. She was asleep before we left the parking garage. I was drained as well but too keyed up to sleep.

We had a follow up today at the pediatrician, who had gotten the full report over the weekend. He did another exam and talked through the whole scenario with me. He concurred the scan was the right thing to do, but questioned why the express care would let a mother drive under such distraught conditions and said he'd have ordered an ambulance. If only he'd seen me careening up route 19! But...all's well that ends well. She's doing great today and they are not concerned about any lasting effects. She's been given the all clear to return to school tomorrow and we can get back to life. I might start putting helmets on the kids every day or wrapping them in bubble wrap!