Mom of the Year

When I woke up this morning I had no idea what I had in for myself for the next 15 hours. . . Well, everything started out pretty normal except I've been having some lower back pain for the past few days but it has been annoying more than anything else. But it is annoying enough to make me, well, annoyed so that set me back one step for the day. Everything else went pretty normally until naptime. The kids both went down and I started down my long "things to do while the kids are sleeping list". I got about 45 minutes of things done when Ford woke up. Apparently nature had called and, alas, that was the end of his nap.

I still had stuff to do on my list so I just figured he could play while I finished up. I needed to move a picture in our bedroom that has been too high since I put it up this time last year. So finally after a year of it bothering me I was planning on fixing it. I plopped Ford down in the middle of our bed with a few toys and realized I left the hammer in the kitchen. I ran into the kitchen grabbed the hammer and as I was walking back into our room I looked up and saw Ford reaching out over the side of the bed and come crashing down on his head. I dropped the hammer and ran to him. I was absolutely sick. I thought there was a good chance I had just watched my child break his neck. Apparently he had lunged forward to his tummy from where I had left him sitting and thrown a toy over the edge of the bed. He was reaching over for the toy and his head took him over. He landed completely on his head and his neck kind of bent in a very not so nice way.

This is where PICU nurse and Mom collide. Do I scoop him up and console him or do I stabilize his C-spine?? (I picked him up although I was assessing him the whole time.) Once I realized he was moving all of his limbs I immediately thought hospital . . . ER . . . CT scan . . . neurosurgery. WAIT! It is July 2nd! The new Residents started YESTERDAY! I did not want to take my baby to the hospital to be seen by pediatric and neurosurgery residents who were 4th year medical students on Monday. Besides it is a sad joke in my unit that all of the parents who abuse their children always make the same excuse "He fell off the bed". No doubt an interview with a social worker would be involved at some point to rule that out. I had all of these thoughts in about 3 seconds as I was picking my baby up off the floor. We rocked and he nursed and calmed down after about 10 minutes. I just kept on telling him I was sorry over and over again because, probably more than ever in my life, I truly was.

I called Rhett and told him what happened. He assured me that as long as he was responsive, moving everything, didn't appear to have any tenderness, pupils equal etc. that he was probably fine and we should just watch him at home. I still felt like a sorry excuse for a mother but I was reminded of several people I know whose kids had fallen of a bed, couch or crib at some point and the kids were fine and the mothers weren't bad either. Here is a picture of the damage . . .

Poor little guy. He's got an abrasion and a nice goose egg thanks to Mommy. Sorry little man. I didn't think you could make a move like that.

This didn't change the fact that Claire had a followup dentist appt. this afternoon. I don't think I mentioned that before now. A few weeks ago she had a big fall on a hard floor and damaged one of her front teeth. It started to turn gray (basically a bruise on the inside of the tooth) so we took her in had it X-rayed and we were going back today for a follow up. Imagine how this looks to the dentist. Last week one kid had trauma to her mouth and this week the other one shows up with head trauma. Anyone suspicious yet?? The incredibly nice Dentist (you'd have to be incredibly nice to be a pediatric dentist) was showing me a comparison of the two xrays so I gingerly jumped up off the exam table where I was sitting with Claire so I could get a better look. At this point I slam my toe on somesort of box or stair or something on the floor. I couldn't really tell what it was because I was seeing stars. Everyone was very concerned about it but I tried to play it off because it was a slightly less than gracious move. After we get done talking about the tooth he says "how's your toe?" and I look down to see half of the nail ripped from the nailbed and a pool of blood collecting under it. Of course everyone is now making an even bigger deal about it and I'm still trying to play it off because I mean who can do this kind of damage at the Dentist's office??? It was numb by that point anyway so it didn't matter. The good part is he didn't charge me for the xray - I think he felt pretty bad about my toe. I decided that I probably deserved this toe punishment due to the damage I had just caused to my child. So out of the dentist's office we stumble - Claire with her bum tooth, Ford with a huge red lump on his head and me dragging a bleeding toe. And that is quite enough for today. Excuse me while I limp off to bed . . .