Can you say, accident prone?

I knew for sure in July 2009 that Carson would be my accident prone child. While we were on vacation and staying at my sister's he fell down the stairs and broke his arm. Now, he has a scratched up face, black eye and a goose egg above his eye.

Last night he was playing in the hall just outside his bedroom door, when Courtney came through and tried to jump over him and the toy. She ended up hitting him in the back of the head, slamming his face into the corner of his door. I saw it happen and could not get to him fast enough. He screamed and cried, of course, and would not let me look at it. I was afraid he had hit diagonally and had broken his nose. When I got his hands away from his face, it was already swelling. It looked like he had an indention between his eye and nose, then his cheek started bleeding and I could see for sure a definite mark up his face. He didn't want me to touch him, yet he wanted me. It took a little while before he calmed down, but he finally did.

In the meantime, Courtney was very upset because she hurt brother. It was an accident, but I did have a talk with her about being more careful. She is still apologizing to him today.

This is my poor, sweet, baby boy, who fell asleep on the couch tonight. This is not unusual, but it allowed me to get a better picture of his eye.

I do not want to ask the question, what next?

Snow Surprise!

This morning started out like any other morning when school is in session. I got up, made Courtney a lunch for school and woke her up. A few minutes after she was up and we were discussing her options for breakfast, my phone rang. I noticed it was my mother-in-law, so of course I answered it, wondering why she was calling at 6:30am. I had also just turned the television on to see and the first thing I saw was the weather radar covered in pink and white. I couldn't believe what I was seeing and this was the reason she was calling. My father-in-law was getting ready to leave for work when they looked outside and saw another winter wonderland, which we were not expecting.

I, of course, woke my husband to tell him, which I'm sure he could have done without, but he needed to know. I looked outside and everything was white. I figured schools would be closed, but I checked just in case they were crazy enough to not cancel, LONOKE SCHOOLS CLOSED. I was then wishing I would have received the phone call or turned on the tv or computer before I woke Courtney up, she could have slept in and I could have had a little more peace and quiet.

When I told her school was closed, she ran to the window and about screamed. She is excited about the snow, but said we would just have to turn the house in to a school. I'm not real sure about that, but she seems to think it's a possibility. She does have a lesson to do for the H.I.P.P.Y program she is in, so maybe that will satisfy her for now.

Now, it's time to get my husband off to work. He isn't pleased with the weather, since the news said last night we shouldn't get any snow, it should all be north of us. I'm hoping he will be able to make it safely to work and they will be able to get things done, so he can get home early before it gets dark and freezes.

Here's hoping everyone stays safe and warm today.

One stick and five hours later

It has been a crazy, stressful twenty-four hours at my house. I picked up my mother Wednesday morning so she could watch Carson while I took care of some paperwork up at the school and then pick Courtney up. She started complaining about her knee hurting that evening and was starting to have trouble walking. We applied some ice packs and later even tried heat packs, but nothing seemed to help. She took some Tylenol, since she can't take Ibuprofen, and that wasn't touching it either. She got up several times during the night, but insisted it was just arthritis like her doctor had told her a couple of weeks before. She said her doctor had even offered to prescribe her pain medicine, which she refused, to help with the discomfort. Yesterday afternoon she was hardly able to walk across the room and was talking about getting a walker. I was so aggravated with her for not getting the medicine to help her.

She finally said something to me about looking at her leg and how it was swollen. When I looked at it I could immediately tell it was not arthritis. I started going through things in my head trying to figure out what was wrong. I looked online and found some similarities between what I could see and the information I found on Deep Vein Thrombosis, aka a blood clot in the leg. Since my mother has a blood condition in which she makes too many red blood cells and has trouble with blood clotting, I felt it made since. I told her what I thought and that we needed to take her to see her primary care doctor. She didn't argue and almost seemed relieved to be going to the doctor. I called her doctor and they didn't have any appointments, but the receptionist said to leave a message for them to see if they could work us in. After waiting two in a half hours, they called back and said to take her to the ER, that they agreed with me about the possibility of the clot and the best course of action would be the hospital so they could do a doppler ultrasound to see for sure. After calling my mother-in-law to come and get my kids, my husband and my sister, we were off to the hospital.

We were very surprised to get to the ER and not have to wait. They had called us back within five minutes of being there. I don't think we got back that fast when Carson broke his arm. They examined her and said it was possible for her to have a blood clot, but also she could have Cellulitis, an infection in her leg. They wanted to go ahead and take some blood for labs and start an IV. The nurse was very good and got it on the first stick, which made my mother very happy. They soon came and took her to have the ultrasound and came back with good news, no blood clot. I have never been more happy to have been wrong. They did say she had the Cellulitis and would like to keep her overnight to give her IV antibiotics and monitor her.

We had a room and were moving in. It was not a private room, so there would be no room for me to stay the night. I really don't think she would have let me stay anyway. Once she was in the room, they hooked her back up to the antibiotics and fluid. She was fine for a little while, but soon starting itching and turning red. I went to get the nurse and he came back, looked at her and went to get the doctor. The doctor came in and said the itching and redness were caused from the antibiotics and fluids being run to quickly. They lowered the rate and gave her some benadryl just in case she was having an allergic reaction. She is allergic to several things, so we couldn't be sure.

I stayed with her until she ate and the benadryl kicked in, then she was ready for me to go home and for her to get some rest. I called the hospital just a little while ago and they said she was going fine and would receive another dose of antibiotic around 3am and they would give her benadryl first and run it over four hours instead of the original two. The doctor seemed hopeful that she would be able to go home tomorrow. I'm sure I will be up bright and early in the morning to go back to the hospital and hopefully bring her home.