Seize the Day

Well, tradition holds: no long-distance move is ever complete without a late night trip to the local emergency room, within a week after arriving at our new destination. As an added bonus, Z is currently training halfway across the country and is not home. This time, however, it wasn't me with some rare life-threatening condition (which is what has happened in the past); Miss K is a trooper and took one for the team.

It's funny; I was actually waiting for something to happen and watching for it, and fate* did not let me down.

It would seem that there was some overly exuberant jumping on Mommy and Daddy's air mattress, and K didn't land quite right. Actually, she belly flopped. Hard. And landed on her face before the rest of her body connected to the bed. I was in the room and picked her up immediately, she was screaming and grabbing her neck. Then, one of the worst things a mom can see happened: she stopped screaming, arched her back, and then her eyes rolled up in the back of her head and she had clenched her jaw and was out cold. It lasted less than a minute, but it was not pleasant for either of the adults witnessing this.

Z's mother is staying with us for a couple of weeks, so she stayed at the house with A while I flew to the hospital with K. Flew, as in, I still have out of state tags so I kept one eye on my rearview mirror while driving as quickly as I safely could, but not exactly in keeping with the local speed limit. While we were in the waiting room, K regained her color and started acting perfectly normal. As in, flirting with the cute boys and a toothless old man with a cane, and giving hugs to a 10-yr-old girl waiting with her mother. The old man was very surprised, and said, "She's not scared of much, is she." A statement rather than a question.

Results: K is just fine.

She is perfectly normal on every test they could run, although her pupils are mildly dilated. They also did a CT scan on her that -- bless the techs -- K screamed and fought the entire procedure. She had to be wrapped up like a burrito and held in place because she just would not hold still -- and K still managed to worm her right arm out and start hitting the woman holding her head steady. To say that K was not happy would be a huge, huge understatement. I'm thinking of buying a bunch of earplugs for the techs as a "thank you", just in case they ever get another screamer in there. My ears were ringing after the ordeal was over, so I know theirs had to be as well.

The doctor did ask about her prior history and was very interested when I said the only hospitalization she'd ever had was for a seizure incident right after she turned one. Based on the description, it sounds like she may have had another mini seizure. The doc hastened to say that it is not at all uncommon in small children to have a reaction like that after a trauma event -- the brain and nerves don't know how to handle the strong stimuli and just kind of freeze up, or pause for a few seconds. And landing on her head and neck the way she did, it probably popped those nerves in there pretty hard so there was a tremendous amount of pain going on.

We're watching her. We were discharged with instructions for a concussion and are supposed to note if her pupils change size, she gets a fever, or starts vomiting profusely.

Only my daughter would get a concussion and possibly have a seizure from landing wrong on an air mattress. *sigh*

We got home after midnight, and I brought her in to sleep with me. She had nightmares (probably from the CT scan) every 30-45 minutes....and then my husband called me at 6:24 a.m., just after K had dropped off again from her latest bad dream. I am sooooo not a morning person. I think I need the mug that states "Instant Human: Just Add Coffee". It takes me a good hour after I first "wake up" to really be awake.

This morning was definitely a coffee morning. Only thing is, Z always makes the coffee and I have no clue how to do it. Combine that with the sleep deprivation from last night, and it makes for a sad situation. I read on the package that you put in one-and-a-half to two tablespoons of coffee per 6 oz cup. I only wanted one cup, so I dutifully put one-and-a-half tablespoons of grounds into the filter basket. I did remember to put a filter in there. Then I filled the pot up to the "6 cup" mark, dumped the water in, and turned it on.

That was the nastiest brew I have ingested in a long time.

Yes, I put in enough grounds for one cup....but put in water for 6 cups. Still, I was definitely awake after taking one sip of that stuff, so it still served its purpose I suppose.

K is acting completely herself today, no indication that she's in any pain anywhere. So we're good. I have a Muppet movie on in the living room -- finally. I had to do a little "percussive maintenance"* on the DVD player to get it to work. It's one of those cheap-o $15 dealies that is several years old, so it's wearing out.
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*Fate is one of those things that is not respectful of a person's social status or age; it gets around to affecting everyone at some point. I've also noticed that "fate" is "fat" with an "e" tacked on to the end of it.

*percussive maintenance is when you beat the snot out of the offending appliance or machine with your hand, shoe, or whatever else is available. I have found that computers respond pretty well to this, despite the delicate nature of their internal electronics.