The other night, we were getting ready to go to the twins game when I asked Nick to go get his lawn chair outside. He no sooner walked out the door, only to come right back in crying and holding his cheek. He tripped over the dog's run, the dog was trying to get Nick to pet him and Nick tripped on his run line. He did a slide
across the back concrete porch with his face. The whole right side of his face looked like a nasty brush/rug burn. It was bleeding and looked horrible. I thought it couldn't get or look much worse than that.
Then, I took Nick to his last t-ball game by myself (sort of like a treat mommy and son time). I was sitting there watching him run the bases, he made it to home, and started to run for the dug out and tripped. It didn't seem like he hurt himself, so he kept playing. The last inning his team was in the outfield and Nick decided he had to pee, so he took off running for me and ran head first into the gate. You know that little hook lock thingy that locks the gate to the fence, he cracked his head on that. At first he just stood back from it, like what the hell was that. And he started run/walking towards me, when to my horror blood started gushing from his forehead. I jump up and run to him, other parents are in shock. Nick says, it doesn't
hurt, and I said, but you are bleeding.
I took him to the rest room and tried to clean him up with wet paper towels (I just changed out my purse to a smaller one, so I didn't have any bandaids). I told him to pee and then I'd clean his face again. When he came out of the stull, his head was gushing blood again. I know head injuries bleed more than any other body part, so
I just told him to hold his head back and hold the wet towels tightly on his cut. When I got it cleaned up enough to look, he had a cut above his left eyebrow, about a quarter of an inch wide and a half an inch long.
I walked him out of the rest room with the towels on his head, and went to the coaches' wives and asked if they had any bandaids. One of them did, and I put it on his head thinking it would be enough to get home. One of the coaches came over and looked at him, and couldn't believe what he did. He said the game was almost over
anyway and gave Nick a certificate for participating this year (which
was nice).
When the game ended, Nick wanted to line up with his team and go down the line saying "good game". They do this at the end of the games (all the teams on the league do it). Since this was the last game of the season, he wanted to do it, so he puts his hat on and lines up. And what does he do after they're done. He crashes into another kid, because he tripped - again. When he gets back to me, his head is
bleeding again, really bad. It went clear through the bandaid, all down into his eye and all over his cheek. Poor baby!! Me and another mom and a coach's wife clean him up again.
I got him home and put steri strips on his cut. He is perfectly fine. He was running like a nut with his brothers and rough housing, even though I told him not too. So I know he is fine now, but man what an ordeal for him to go through, you know? I felt so bad for him, I went to the store and bought him a bunch of treats. Rich checked him out to make sure he didn't actually need stitches or that he didn't have a concussion or something like that and he redid the strips that I did earlier, because again they were soaked with blood. We'll see how he is in the morning, if he's still bleeding I'll take him in, if not then we'll try not to worry about it too
much.
I still wonder if I did the right thing, as far as bringing him home and fixing it, instead of taking him to the ER. Rich said it looked as if either decision would have been fine. My thinking is that last month I took Nathan in for a head injury. It was a bump on his forehead that swelled up and turned blue and I was afraid he had a concussion or something, so for my piece of mind I took him in. Our insurance charges $50 for each ER visit and so I felt as though I had wasted that money, when the ER docs said Nathan was fine. I explained all this to Rich and he told, that I should never, ever worry about taking the kids to the doctor or hospital. That he would take care of it no matter what it costs. He told me for my piece of mind, if I felt they needed to go and then just take them and he would take care of the cost. He's told me this before, so I don't know why I worry about it. I think a part of me, just wonders if I'm doing the wrong thing. Or maybe it's the fact that I don't want to look stupid bringing a child in for nothing. I don't know. Maybe next time (and let's be realistic with six children there will be a next time), I'll try to remember what Rich said and take it to heart.
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