That one time I was "That Mom"

Saturday (October 7) night I volunteered to watch my friends' three kids while she packed up her house and moved.  I had picked up a couples of pizzas and the kids were running around the house like mad-people.  Alice had escaped to her bed, the top bunk, and Zora wanted to join her, so I stuck her up there.  Then I left to clean up and get the other kids under control.  I heard Zora fussing, like she wanted to get down and was making my way back to get her, but first Rex had something to say.

And the crash.  Zora was lying on her side next to the laundry hamper.  I went and picked her up.  She was crying.  Obviously.  But then she kept crying.  I tried the usual, distract with food, favorite toy, bottle, I rocked her and tried to read her stories.  Nothing.  She kept screaming.  I was beginning to think she might have a concussion.  I remember my mom saying not to let kids with concussions fall asleep, so I went back to the living room where some of the kids were watching a movie.  Zora finally stopped crying, but then she got really quiet.  Like she didn't make any noise at all.  She stopped moving.  She just kind of stared into space.  Her eyes were opened and she was breathing, but she wasn't moving and her eyes kept opening and closing.  I did some Google searches, nothing too helpful.  I took an awkward video of her and send it to our favorite Doctor Uncle Evan.  But he didn't respond immediately, so I text Becky too.  She was on her way home and stopped by on her way.  I tried to get Zora to walk but she'd only take a few steps and then fall.  It was around 6:30 or 7 and I figured that not walking was a bad thing so Becky agreed to watch my kids and the friends' kids (to be fair, I called the friend and thought she'd come get her kids because I would have) while I ran down the street to the urgent care.  I called Greg on my way.  He was just about back to Charlotte after his beach trip.  And then Evan called back and said to skip the urgent care because they don't do anything for head injuries and started talking about brain bleeds and MRIs.  Meanwhile, Greg also called Doctor Uncle Mark, who also said to take Zora straight to the ER.  I started to get concerned.  I usually keep my cool.  Babies are bouncy and usually doctors can't do much for you anyway--here's a band-aide and take some Tylenol.  But a brain bleed sounded serious.  I headed Uptown about 20 minutes away to the closet Novant ER.  Zora still wasn't making any noise so I was pretty sure her brain was slowly being drown in its own blood.  I tried to get her to make noise at every stop light but she was not interested in moving.  I got pretty religious on that drive.

I arrived at the hospital I don't know when.  I didn't know but was lucky to end up at a Pediatric ER (a regular ER would have admitted her and watched her overnight. Pediatric ER's know kids are crazy).  I parked and got Zora out of the car.  She seemed fine.  I briefly considered just going home, but Greg (and Henry) was nearly to the hospital and I was already there.  I went in.

The guy at the desk looked at me like I was crazy when I said I thought she had a brain bleed.  "I swear she was not like this when I got in the car.  She was not responding when I put her in the car."  I was the only one there so I just sat down when I got called back and had to repeat my same crazy story to a triage nurse and then the regular nurse.  Zora, meanwhile, was pretty pissed about being there and refused to be put down.  We moved to a room and the doctor came right in.  She looked Zora all over, and aside from finding a suspicious red mark across the top of her head (it was marker--we'd been coloring with what I thought were washable markers the day before), the doctor couldn't find anything wrong with Zora.  Allen dropped by to pick Henry up and take him back to our house, because Becky needed one more kid at our house.

The doctor pointed out that we don't actually know what Zora hit when she fell.  Yes, she fell about 4 feet but since I wasn't in the room and didn't think to ask Alice, we don't know if she hit her head or arm or whatever.  We even got Zora to take a few angry steps from me to Greg.  I was feeling relieved, but mostly silly.  I am not that mom that who runs to the ER just because a kid fell.  The doctor did point out that we're doing pretty good since this is our first ER visit with four kids.  I still felt silly.  The doctor left to fill out some forms and get us ready to leave.  With the doctor gone and Greg back (Zora was pretty excited to have her dad back), Zora decided to explore the room.  But she couldn't walk.  She'd take a few steps then stumble and fall.  She'd get up, take a few steps, stumble and fall again.  She didn't cry.  She just kept getting up and stumbling around.

Around this time the doctor came back and we convinced Zora to show off her stumbling.  I was feeling less foolish--see I told her she was walking weird.  The doctor checked her out all over again, but because Zora wasn't crying, the doctor didn't think she'd broken anything.

Best we could come up with is that Zora was doing the toddler scoot off the top bunk--you know feet first on the stomach--and landed feet first, which hurt like crazy and made it difficult to walk, which then freaked her out and hurt like crazy so she wanted to just sit and sleep it off for a bit.  Cost me $600.

Which I'm not mad about.  I mean, it is a lot of money.  But I was there in the late evening, which is annoying so people need to be paid more.  I was the only person there.  So the entire ER was open just for me--all the lights, A/C, MRI (which we luckily didn't have to pay for).  I talked to one receptionist, two nurses and a doctor.  The next day the hospital called to check in on Zora and then the day after that I got another call.  I think I got $600 worth of services.

But I may wait 20 minutes and let a kid nap before running to the ER next time.

To be fair, my friend's daughter fell off her regular bed that same night and broke her collar bone, so I'm not totally crazy.

(The next day at church.)