Well, Friday March 30th, Sarah, Robbie, and Andrea were playing in the yard. Anthony took Bella out for a walk and when they got back, Sarah ran to the gate to wait for him. Well, Bella was too excited to see Sarah, so she jumped the fence and unfortunately she knocked Sarah down face first onto the sidewalk. Poor Anthony saw the whole thing, and almost had a mental breakdown. He scooped up Sarah and ran her into the house and yelled at the dog and yelled for everyone to get out of his way. We got her cleaned up and bandaged. She was scratched on her left cheek and ear, the backs of both hands, and fronts of both knees. She hit her forehead on a corner or something and was bleeding pretty quickly from a cut.
After about an hour, she was still pretty upset. Anthony had to leave to work, so I had just been snuggling her on the couch. Robbie was being super cute and kept bringing us bandaids and saying, “Sarah, I know you hurt really bad,” in a very sympathetic voice. She also put Bella in timeout for knocking Sarah over, and had a few talks with her.
Anyway, after an hour I gave Sarah some grape Tylenol. An hour after that, she was still crying. She would start to act groggy and ask to lay down for a nap, but the minute I put her down she’d just start sobbing. I’ve always been able to remain calm when the kids have gotten hurt. I just do what needs to be done and wait for them to finish crying. Well, after trying to help Sarah lay down a few times and 2 hours of constant crying, I was starting to get upset with her. It was really hard not to cry with her so sad and hurt. We were snuggling again in the rocking chair, when she told me, “Mom, I just need to cry real loud.” I told her to go ahead, and the sound that came out of her was the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. I started bawling and telling her how sorry I was. She stopped crying for a second and said, “Mom, *sob* why are you so-o-o-orry?” like she was trying to comfort me. M heck, just thinking about it makes me cry again.
About this time, I called her doctor’s office. I asked them how to tell if she had a concussion. They told me if she vomited, got super drowsy, wasn’t acting like herself, or was really dizzy. They also told me that it was an old wives tale not to let them sleep if they have a concussion. What you do is after they sleep for about an hour, you shake their leg a little and make sure they have a normal response like shifting around a little. If they don’t, you rush them to the ER.
Sarah was having some pretty serious mood swings, but I thought that seemed normal for someone who was hurt that badly. About 3 hours after the accident, she threw up all over the couch. I called the doctor and asked what to do now. They told me to take her to the ER at Primary Children’s.
When we got there, they took her straight back to a room. After they examined her, they said she definitely had a concussion, but it didn’t look a like a brain bleed. Symptoms of a brain bleed are persistent vomiting, and lethargy so bad that you can’t rouse them. They kept us there for an hour for observation, and cleaned her wounds.
She was so cute, she made all the nurses laugh. They gave her a teddy bear, some extra bandaids, a sippy cup, and a special syringe for a bathtub toy. She was most excited, though, about the individual serving-sized slices of cheese.
She’s doing tons better. She already looks like she’s been healing for a week. We’ve had a lot of people drop by to check on her, and she’s had a lot of presents. Thanks everyone for your love and thoughts!
Poor Kid! Glad everything was okay!