i failed my son today.  he fell out of a playhouse outside on the playground, and i didn’t catch him.  i was looking the other direction, talking to a friend… and for the briefest of seconds, i looked away.  and he fell.

on his head.

he’s 14 months and climbing everything he can possibly attempt to climb whether it’s the couch or the gate we have up to keep him out of the kitchen.  he climbs it all.  and today, when i wasn’t looking, he climbed out of the foot-and-a-half-tall window of one of those stupid-ass plastic fisher-price playhouses and fell on his head and onto a concrete curb.

other moms were there…  other kids…  it was embarrassing to be “that mom” with the injured child who was screaming at the top of his lungs, to the point of not breathing.  but for me, being embarrassed, was the farthest thing from my mind.

my son was hurt.

my heart stopped.

i scooped him up, fighting back tears myself, and soothed my son.  after about a minute and a half, he calmed down.  he was quiet, a little more so than usual.  but ok…  i guess.  after consulting some terrific mom-friends who were outside with me, i brought jackson inside, cleaned the scrape that was on his head and called paul at work.

he was coming home for lunch anyways, but the urgency in my voice brought him home that much faster.

we took jackson to the ER… (for the umpteenth time).  i was on the phone with jackson’s pediatric nurse (and on hold) as we drove to the ER with the magoo.  they went through head-trauma protocol with me over the phone…

“is he unconscious?”

“no.”

“is he vomiting?”

“no.”

“did he cry for longer than 20 minutes after the fall?”

“no. more like 20 seconds.”

“is there an active bleed.”

“well yeah, but it’s more of a scrape than an open wound.”

“ok… bring him to the ER and have him looked at really just to make you feel better, and follow up with Dr. ____ next week.”

“ok.”

so we park.  paul and i are silent.  i’m holding jackson as close to my body as possible (like that will do anything).  we go through triage, get his umpteenth ankle band for his hospital ID and wait.  we don’t wait for long because with a little one who has a head injury, i guess that puts you up at the top of the list.

BONUS!

the nurse was sweet…  a little too sweet.  i didn’t want her cooing at my son, trying to get him to smile.  i wanted her to do her job, get the info she needed, and pass it on to the dr.  LIKE RIGHT NOW.  but whatever, she had a good bedside manner i suppose.

while we wait, jackson acts just like the pistol that he is…  he crawls all over the hospital bed… pulls the sheet off and on… “vroom vrooms” his trucks all over it and then throws them on the floor.  he acts “fine,” seems “fine,” but…  in the back of my mind…  i know that sometimes things that seem fine are not fine.

so i’m scared.  and i twitter about it as we wait…

the response is overwhelming, and it really is a testament to the awesome community that exists out in this techy-world of our’s that we live in.  strangers friends message me stories of their kids… acknowledging my fears but comforting me at the same time… the tweets got me through the ER.  so THANK YOU.  from the bottom of my heart.  you know who you are.

the doctor was great.  he was prompt, personable, acknowledged the fact that i was ready to vomit on his shoes… totally sweet.  he thoroughly examined jackson and diagnosed him with a “closed head injury” basically meaning there was no internal bleeding.

apparently it’s a good sign if your kid develops a goose-egg post head fall.  it means all the blood vessels are moving towards the outer direction (obviously causing a bruise) and not inward.  he checked his eyes, ears, etc…  no broken bones, no internal bleeding and told us that he really did not want to subject jackson to the radiation involved in a cat-scan because he didn’t find it necessary to do so.

((((sigh))))

this is where i waver back and forth… and i imagine any mother would.  there was part of me that said, “are you kidding me?!  did you not see natasha richardson die post brain bleed?!”  and then there was part of me that saw this doctor as a father, and listened to him as he said, “my daughter had this same exact closed head injury and it’s ok.  this hurts you more than it hurts jackson.”  (which is so true because i was seriously wanting to down a xanax with a glass of wine at that moment because it hurt me that bad).

we trusted the doctor.  came home.  jackson had a bottle and took (sort of) an afternoon nap… he’s been a little more fussy than usual, but shit, if i went face first into a slab of concrete, i’d be fussy too!

so here we are…  it’s 7:51 pm and jackson is asleep.  my fantastic husband came home with a bottle of my favorite wine (amongst many other bottles just for kicks) to calm me down… and we’ll hang.  supposedly the 24 hours post- head trauma are the more critical.

will i sleep tonight?  i dunno…  would you?

am i over-reacting?  probably…  i have a tendency to do that?

will i drink a lot of wine to “soothe my nerves”?

absolutely.  tonight, my bottle is definitely UP!