A quieter day, please.
Nov. 22nd, 2005 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
saffronhareWhat a day yesterday, 'round the clock. Got to bed about midnight, after observing that a whole 24 hours of Bad Day had finally passed.
The doctors and nurses at Children's Mercy are incredible. They got a great deal more information out of Princess !Kaboom than I thought possible, even though we still don't have a complete picture of what happened. PK and a buddy at school hit their heads against each other, but they didn't cry...that explains why the teacher didn't report it. If two kids bonk heads and they don't cry, I sure wouldn't consider it anything remarkable, either. And she's only there for three hours. Since playground time is most likely when it happened, that only gives about 90 minutes in which to observe that a kid is slowing down.
She was holding her head during gymnastics and the coach had her sit down for a bit, but she didn't sit long -- flipping around on the bars and bouncing on the trampoline couldn't have helped much. (sigh) At home, once she relaxed, that's when the screaming and holding of the head began. She was sensitive to light and just couldn't stop crying long enough to explain what was wrong. Mom- and Dad-Senses were tingling, and we were ready to call the doctor a few moments before the puking started. The doctor on call said we should go to the hospital right away. I won (?) the coin toss. Pretty gross and funny it was, timing my departure for the hospital Right After a puking round, so as to decrease the odds of puking in the car.
Once we got there, she did not squirm to race around the waiting room. She did not whine about wanting to color or try to watch the cartoons. When the triage nurse asked how she was, she said "great," but did not offer her name and the names of everyone else in the family. This was No Good. Though the waiting room was pretty busy, we did not have to wait long for an exam room.
The doctor did some neurological tests and peppered her with questions. Nose and ears clear of blood (check); pupils a little slow to react, but balanced (check); arm and leg strength good (check); able to walk a straight line (check); etc. The doctor commented on how strong PK was, and the kid said yeah, I do gymnastics but I don't think I want to show you a cartwheel right now. Oh, said the doctor, that's okay.
Since Children's Mercy didn't have a CT Scan machine thingie, we went with the observation approach. After an hour of observation, they went through the neurological tests again...and again after a second hour of observation. Since there were no alarming developments, and since she had succeeded in holding down some Sprite and crackers, and since she had started chasing lights and shadows across the floor, we determined that she was Good to Go. It was diagnosed as a mild concussion (a "non-significant closed head injury"). Home we went, for some chit-chat and a snuggle on the couch with a very twitchy Daddy Dragon and then off to bed.
Check.
Though it wasn't strictly necessary,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
agrnmn and I independently performed the Stupid Parent Trick of sneaking upstairs during the night to poke her and make sure she'd wake up. There's a merit badge for this sort of thing, right?
Thanks to everybody for the well-wishes and prayers and such. Honestly, I'm surprised nothing like this has happened before with her. I've set out some cookies for the Monday Dragon -- it was a rough day for him, too.
The doctors and nurses at Children's Mercy are incredible. They got a great deal more information out of Princess !Kaboom than I thought possible, even though we still don't have a complete picture of what happened. PK and a buddy at school hit their heads against each other, but they didn't cry...that explains why the teacher didn't report it. If two kids bonk heads and they don't cry, I sure wouldn't consider it anything remarkable, either. And she's only there for three hours. Since playground time is most likely when it happened, that only gives about 90 minutes in which to observe that a kid is slowing down.
She was holding her head during gymnastics and the coach had her sit down for a bit, but she didn't sit long -- flipping around on the bars and bouncing on the trampoline couldn't have helped much. (sigh) At home, once she relaxed, that's when the screaming and holding of the head began. She was sensitive to light and just couldn't stop crying long enough to explain what was wrong. Mom- and Dad-Senses were tingling, and we were ready to call the doctor a few moments before the puking started. The doctor on call said we should go to the hospital right away. I won (?) the coin toss. Pretty gross and funny it was, timing my departure for the hospital Right After a puking round, so as to decrease the odds of puking in the car.
Once we got there, she did not squirm to race around the waiting room. She did not whine about wanting to color or try to watch the cartoons. When the triage nurse asked how she was, she said "great," but did not offer her name and the names of everyone else in the family. This was No Good. Though the waiting room was pretty busy, we did not have to wait long for an exam room.
The doctor did some neurological tests and peppered her with questions. Nose and ears clear of blood (check); pupils a little slow to react, but balanced (check); arm and leg strength good (check); able to walk a straight line (check); etc. The doctor commented on how strong PK was, and the kid said yeah, I do gymnastics but I don't think I want to show you a cartwheel right now. Oh, said the doctor, that's okay.
Since Children's Mercy didn't have a CT Scan machine thingie, we went with the observation approach. After an hour of observation, they went through the neurological tests again...and again after a second hour of observation. Since there were no alarming developments, and since she had succeeded in holding down some Sprite and crackers, and since she had started chasing lights and shadows across the floor, we determined that she was Good to Go. It was diagnosed as a mild concussion (a "non-significant closed head injury"). Home we went, for some chit-chat and a snuggle on the couch with a very twitchy Daddy Dragon and then off to bed.
Check.
Though it wasn't strictly necessary,
agrnmn and I independently performed the Stupid Parent Trick of sneaking upstairs during the night to poke her and make sure she'd wake up. There's a merit badge for this sort of thing, right?Thanks to everybody for the well-wishes and prayers and such. Honestly, I'm surprised nothing like this has happened before with her. I've set out some cookies for the Monday Dragon -- it was a rough day for him, too.
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no subject
Date: 2005-11-22 07:53 pm (UTC)I like the Scout leader knots... especially since this year we're going to finish the Hart and Crescent (pagan) religious medalions. As much as Mik thinks the place is "conservative", I find that they're actually just JoCo yuppies, and when I mentioned the award the pack coordinator knew what they were, and thought it was awesome.
The local Trinity church also has a HArry Potter theme going this month and next.