Our own trauma in the ER...

See the boo-boo on my nose? (I sat up on my own 12/15/05.)

(I held my bottle all by myself! 12/15/05)


So, last Wednesday Brandon, Hadlee and I went to visit Abuelita at Vanderbilt Hospital b/c she was recovering from surgery. All went well; Hadlee performed and smiled on command for everyone we saw. It was a great visit. On the way out I was carrying the baby (b/c that carrier is so heavy and we didn't have the stroller w/ us). We were walking along and going in and out of elevators and switching buildings to get back to the parking garage when I stepped in a small drainage hole, twisted my ankle and fell. Hadlee's head hit the (incredibly nasty) concrete and I PANICKED!!!! I immediately began screaming at Bran to get a doctor. He said he didn't know where they were (Remember we were AT VANDERBILT HOSPITAL!!) and some women were asking if we were ok and trying to check out our very injured, screaming, and crying baby. Bran took HAH from my arms, I grabbed the bags and we flew at mock 90 to the ER... The adult ER which is incredibly smelly, nasty and very full of thuggish looking people ~ YUCK!!! We smelled like we'd been smoked in about 2 seconds flat. Anyway, they took the baby back immediately while Brandon tried to give them our info... Did any of you have your child's social security number memorized at 4 months? Cuz we flunked that part. Two nurses attempted to get Hadlee's stats... She was so upset that they basically just made sure she wasn't' leaking brain fluid and had a heartbeat (check, check). Then they sent us back out to wait until someone from the Children's Hospital could come to transport us back (roughly a mile and a half treck from one ER to the other). It took about 30 minutes of waiting in "if you want lung cancer in the near future just hang out here and you can get it via the second hand smoke from these oh so frightening people" central to get a transporter to wheel HAH and I up to Children's.
We finally get to Children's (after I call my sister and let here know what's going on ~ we both broke down, again), which is a much happier looking, nicer smelling, non-future-lung-cancer-inducing-from-second-hand-smoke-filled area and are asked to wait. While we are there Hadlee turns back into here old smiling, laughing, chewing on everything in site self... In comes a tiny two week old who is vomiting non-stop from her nose, a two year old who had cut off one of his own toes, a 12 year old w/ a concussion and an 8 year old w/ fluid on his heart. They took us back in front of all the others (HELLO, GUILT CITY!!!). The doctor who came to see us was very nice, gentle, and thorough... Though to my sister's disgust didn't do a brain scan to make sure Hadlee was still a genius. She examined HAH, pressed on her face (and told us if there were any broken bones we'd hear a crunching sound ~ I almost buicked on her) and had HAH laughing. (Note that when I tried to clean the dirt off her nose Hadlee almost bit my hand off and here this stranger was pressing on the injury and she LAUGHED!!!) We were given a clean bill of health and told to give HAH tylenol of she acted fussy and "Merry Christmas" from the cool doctor who had a Christmas tree light necklace.
Thus ended our first (and hopefully LAST) ER trip.
I took a sick day on Thursday (more for my emotional health than Hadlee's physical) and she held her bottle by herself and sat up on her own... Much more than I really needed to see at one time! But I did get it all on camera!!!
Thursday Hadlee had her 4 month immunizations. So once again I felt like the worst mother in the world. I did promise to pay for all the therapy needed and then some due to the 24 hours of trauma. Now I'm on a two week break and enjoying spending precious time w/ my girl. I officially hate Christmas decorations or anything associated w/ them and wish that I had a magic wand to get this all done... Where is that fairy god-mother when she's really needed???