Day 88- Headache but no heartache

People kept telling me things I didn't really want to hear today. It started when I got a called today at work that no parent wants to receive. "There's been an accident, Teagan's hit her head. You need to come to school and..." At that point I had already stopped listening, and was mentally creating a list of the things I would grab from my desk in order to leave, as well as the people I needed to call while I drove to the school.

When I got to the nurse's office, I thought for sure I would find her with a big goose egg on her head, but instead I was greeted by 4 adults, all hovering around my child. And although they were all calm, the mood was somber.  She had apparently run full force into another child, 3 Stooges style, resulting in her crashing to the ground and hitting her forehead. They recommended I take her in to the doctor, and talked about her pupils, being disoriented and icing her head. But I had already stopped listening again because I was making plans that involved getting her sister in the car, and getting her to the doctor as soon as humanly possible.

On the short drive home to drop her sister off at home with the babysitter, I managed to get the doctor's office on the phone. I was sure they would tell me that I didn't need to bring her in, and to ice her head. But instead they asked if I was already in the car with her and suggested an ambulance pick her up if she wasn't already in route. As they directed me to go straight to the ER, not their office, to get her seen as soon as possible, again I stopped listening while I desperately tried to remember anything about first aid. Was I supposed to let her fall asleep? Was it normal for her to be this groggy? Should I attempt to keep her coherent and engaged in conversation?  Aren't doctors on TV always having insane conversations with trauma patients while yelling, "Stay with me!  Stay with me!"  Do you know how hard it is to process all of that, while on the freeway with an injured child in the backseat? I have no idea what I said to her, or how we got to the hospital, but she stayed awake. 

Once we got to the ER and registered I started to breathe again, until words like CT Scan started getting thrown around. And I stopped listening again because suddenly all of this talking that people were doing was starting to sink in, and it was really starting to scare me. The ability to be completely petrified inside while remaining calm on the outside is apparently something I have perfected,  as I heard myself rationally say, "Well, if there's even a chance there is an issue, shouldn't she have the CT Scan?"

Wearing a lead apron and seeing her little body lay still in that big CT machine was frightening, but it was worth it to hear nothing was wrong. Thankfully, it was only a concussion and she just needed some rest.  I think that I need some rest too, this day was a little too exciting for me.