Can't pretend right now

The emotional roller coaster of having taken my 2 year old to the ER after a fall on Tuesday is rough.  I expected it to be hard on Tuesday night when I got home.  My sister in law's presence was truly a sanity saver.  She drove down and met us at the hospital, arriving after B had just begun to recover from his fall, and then brought us home. The past 2 days, I have experienced sheer relief and thankfulness.  Today, the reality of what happened and what could have happened has hit.  I am not blaming myself, though at times I do feel like an idiot for stepping so away and turning around, assuming little daredevil was behind me.  I cannot count the number of times his Daddy or I has prevented what he did from happening.  I should have known better.


I keep experiencing affirmations that I did the right thing by calling 911, that I was not imagining my son's strange state, that something was really, terribly wrong, even if just for a couple of hours.  That Someone, our Heavenly Father, sent some guardian angels to cushion his fall and protect him from brain or spinal injury.

The accident occurred at nap time.  Only he went from running around, wearing himself out one minute, to barely staying awake the next.  That is not normal.  Case in point:  I tucked him in for nap around 2:15 today. His bedroom is on the other side of the wall from my bathroom, and I could hear him playing.  He often resists nap. An hour and a half later, I let Sissy open the door and let him out of his room.  He never slept.

In contrast, while we were in the ambulance on Tuesday, he fell into a nearly undisturbable sleep.  If he opened his eyes at all (he did a couple of times), he did not turn his head to look at me, he did not talk, he barely responded to my voice.  It was not normal.  We kept tickling him, tugging at him, telling him to "wake up."  He didn't wake up until just before we arrived at the hospital, when the EMT tried to get an IV in him just in case.  The EMT's said they saw his limbs move with the startle response, but that was not the same as the neck hugs and slobbery kisses I knew.  He didn't reopen his eyes until just before we arrived at the hospital, and that was because the EMT tried to get an IV in him just in case. He said, "ouch. no" and whimpered a bit, but still did not look at me. He let them put a precautionary oxygen tube in his nostrils.  My boy who won't keep hats on his head most of the time was laying as still as a sardine in a can.  His neck brace didn't seem to phase him.  As they opened the door to carry him into the hospital, he did squeeze my hand when I squeezed his.  A little.  That was the beginning of getting my son back. I kept reminding myself that after the 20 second loss of consciousness as I cradled him on the mulch, he had reached up for me, he had asked for mama before leaving me again.  Finally, Hope crept in.

I can't dwell on the what ifs.  But at the moment, I can't even imagine taking him to a playground right now.  Not without Daddy, and even then, I don't know if I'll be able to handle it.  I was supposed to go to MOPS today.  The CT scan showed that the sinus crud he has fought was indeed some kind of an infection, so we got him on antibiotics yesterday afternoon.  And after dropping Sissy off at school, I confess... I couldn't let my boy out of my sight, even for 2 hours.

Maybe I'll feel better when my partner gets home from being 10 hours away tonight.  I hope so.  I know I can't shelter him from everything, and eventually he will learn not to jump off of 4 foot platforms trying to reach the monkey bars like his big sister.  But I'd rather keep him safe until he can jump safely.