Daredevil baby and a trip to the ER!

My little girl is a daredevil in the making. She is afraid of nothing! Her brother has always been a very cautious child, in fact he is just now getting to the point where you can really push him on the swing. But this little girl is into EVERYTHING, she wants to climb on the furniture, climb up the stairs, try all the playground equipment and she isn't even 18 months old yet! She's going to be the one to ride all the roller coasters with her Nana!

Anyway, Monday afternoon we were getting ready to go grocery shopping and all that fun stuff. I was in here checking our bank account when I heard the loudest thump followed by that breathless scream, when a baby can't seem to get the noise out because they are SO distressed. I raced in to see what had happened and from what I can gather (big brother witnessed a portion of it) she had decided to get on the couch, climb up on the armrest and was teetering around trying to climb up on the back of the couch! During this maneuver, I guess she slipped, lost her balance and fell face-first onto the hardwoods. I grabbed her up and hugged and kissed and did all those motherly comforting things, while trying to assess the damage. It really didn't look that bad and she calmed down after a few minutes. So we proceeded on our merry way. As I pulled into the parking lot, she let out a scream and in short order barfed ALL over herself and my car! Then she continued to cry and she kept leaning her head back and closing her eyes like she really wanted to sleep. Well, I've always heard that head trauma, followed by vomiting is NOT a good thing. So I booked it back home to get her some clean clothes and had the doctor on the phone preparing them for my imminent arrival. The hubby met me at the doctor's office and she was examined and then we were sent to the ER at the new children's hospital for a CT scan. Needless to say I am becoming more and more worried and the thought of having to wait in the ER with all the sick, snotty, little kids is NOT sounding like fun. We arrive and get checked in and sit in the waiting room forever, then we get beckoned by a nurse who shows us into our private little room for us to wait... FOREVER! Finally about 1 1/2 hours into it, the doctor comes in to examine her and says we need to have a CT scan done (I'm thinking I've already heard this and what is the damn hold-up!). So he leaves and get this, we wait. And wait. And still more waiting. At this point the hubby and our son have seen almost every inch of the hospital corridors, visited the gift shop and the snack bar.

Anyway, they FINALLY come in to get her for the scan. One parent was allowed to accompany her to the scan. So I opted to go, in hindsite, maybe not the best thing for me to do. We went into the room and the technician takes her lays her on this table thing and wraps her in a blanket SO tightly and then straps her down with these big straps. Then to add insult to injury, he shoves her little head into this headrest thing, shoves pads next to the sides of her head and cranks a strap down over her forehead (that's where she hit the floor and I'm sure this was painful). Now I know they have to keep her still for the procedure, my brain knows this, but my heart and soul are just breaking. She is terrified and crying and I'm trying to comfort her in any way I can, which was futile. She just kept yelling, "MOMMY, MOMMY, MOMMY!" I kept telling her she was OK, with tears streaming down my face and this is all before the stupid scan even starts! So next the little table starts to move and her head gets shoved through this giant donut-looking thing, all these weird noises start and then she really freaks! I wanted so badly to just rip all that shit off of her and grab her and run out the door, never to return! Seriously, I should have let my hubby deal with this! I am WAY too emotional and like I've stated before, my mother bear instinct is quite honed and I feel the need to harm people when they make my children scream like that (I guess it's a good thing the technician was a pretty big, burly guy that could probably have taken me out!).

We were then escorted back to the room for another hour of waiting to find out that the scan was clear and she was OK, well, by medical standards OK, she was pretty banged up and still throwing up and not a happy girl at all, regardless of how good her scan looked. He said that they would come in and give a dose of Tylenol and get us checked out. I was glad for that as the baby and I were both covered in barf and smelling really bad! So dinner and a bath sounded nice to me. I sent hubby and the boy out the the lobby and waited for our release. I sat there another HOUR and finally got pissed and went to the nurse's station to tell them never mind about the stinkin' Tylenol, I had some at home, just bring me our release papers so I could go home and get out of these puke-covered clothes! They looked shocked, I don't know if it was from them being surprised I was still there, or that I had the gall to come and bitch, either way, I had may papers 5 minutes later and was out the door to go pay.

We made it home, although she did barf in the car one last time, for good measure I suppose. I took her and bathed her, put her in some jammies and handed her off to her daddy. I then informed him that I was off to take a bath and decompress a bit. I was still recovering my adrenaline rush and was so tired from all the waiting and worrying that I needed to go soak, read a bit and try to get myself back to somewhat normal again. While soaking it occurred to me how frustrating life must be for people who have chronically ill children. If I had to deal with doctors and hospitals frequently I believe it would absolutely suck the life right out of me. You are at the mercy of the system when you are there. You will wait as long as they want you to wait, they will leave you to worry with a sick or hurt child, trying to comfort them in a cold and unfamiliar place. It's awful! I hope my children continue to be healthy and hopefully my little daredevil will take away a lesson from her incident, that maybe standing on the arm of the couch isn't such a cool thing after all! She is doing fine now, except for the bruising which is now creeping down her forehead and into her eyes. She's most likely going to end up with a shiner or two, UGH! But she is happy and doing all the things she normally does, so at least she seems no worse for the wear... wish I could say the same, I'm sure I have at least 20 more gray hairs!