Fateful Day in January

 I always knew my day would come. The day I had to take one of my kids to Emergency Room. But I was wrong about who would send me there. I always thought Jonah would be my "one." He's a total daredevil and very adventurous. But I underestimated Henry. Clumsiness is much more powerful that adventurous! Yes, Henry is the "one" I will have to watch much more closely.  Poor Hamster! I'm fairly certain he got the clumsiness from me.

So Friday, January 17 was a day like all the rest. The kids were playing and we were planning to go to dinner for a friends birthday party later that evening. The boys came inside and asked me to come out and look at a "dangerous red ant." So I just shoved Dan's flip flops over my socks and went out with Lucy thinking I would only be outside for a few minutes. I saw the dangerous red ant and started heading back in. Henry had grabbed a little car and was really excited to go dig in the dirt with it. He was running over to me when he darted through an area off the path and tripped over a toy. He slammed his head right into the edge of our raised brick patio. I knew it would be bad but was praying it wouldn't be that bad. He immediately started crying and held his head. I set Lucy down and went over to pick him up. I moved his hand and was pretty terrified at what I saw. I saw his skull. Yes, his skull. Not skin over his head - I saw his skull - bone! He had cut his forehead right down the middle all the way down to the bone. And it was gaping wide open. It looked huge. So I grabbed Henry in one arm, grabbed Lucy in the other and ran inside. It was really scary. I took Henry into the bathroom and shoved a towel on it. Of course he was screaming and crying and very scare. Lucy was screaming and crying too. I tried calling Dan. No answer. I tried for what seemed like a million times. No answer. I tried calling a friend down the street - no answer. Seriously. Freaking out. So I called 911. I knew I couldn't drive him to the hospital by myself and I was scared at how deep it was, especially since it was a head wound. Thankfully the dispatcher was really nice and calm. The fire department showed up almost immediately and they were all super nice. I think the entire crew came! It seemed like there were firefighters or paramedics everywhere! They got Henry settled down and decided to transport him in the ambulance. Thankfully one of the firefighters volunteered to stay with Lucy and Jonah while I went with Henry in the ambulance. I was able to get ahold of Dan just as we were pulling out to head for the hospital. Super stressful!!!!

They took him to Childrens Hospital where he was checked out for head trauma. Thankfully he hadn't passed out or displayed any other signs of head trauma. Unfortunately he had eaten some goldfish shortly before he got hurt. So we had to wait four hours before they could stitch him up since we would need to be sedated. What a long day!! He was a total trooper and was such a good boy. Although the entire way in the ambulance he kept yelling for someone to put a bandaide on it. Poor guy. If only that would have fixed it! After four long hours, they sedated him and stitched and glued the entire thing together. What an ordeal! I am so thankful for all the professional and helpful people who took care of us. The firefighters, the paramedics, the police officer who came to stay at the house until Dan got there, all the doctors, nurses and the plastic surgeon who took care of Henry.  We got the bill for the entire thing the other day - $6000!!! Yikes! Thankfully our insurance took care of everything but our deductible.

 About a week after his incident, we baked some brownies and took them over to our local fire department. I don' know if they were the ones who actually responded but we wanted to thank them for all their work and help. They were the nicest guys! They took the boys on a tour of the firehouse and then showed them several of the fire trucks and tanker trucks. They boys were really excited to get into the huge firetrucks!