Dave's brother Nick was being promoted to a Colonel in the Army, so we flew out this past weekend to attend the promotion ceremony and join in the celebration. Dozens of family members attended all of the festivities, and festive it was until.....
We all went on a family walk - grandparents, aunts, uncles, grand kids - a perfect Colorado evening. As we got back to the house, we do what we always do, joined in a sport. This night it was basketball. Bodie was more excited than anyone. As the littlest cousin, he was so proud to be carrying the regulation-sized basketball to his dad and then signaling to be picked up so he could put the ball in the hoop. Dave is the most amazing dad and did exactly what Bodie wanted, over and over and over again.
Bodie eventually landed on Dave's shoulders - a typical perch for him - and the dunking continued. Then in a split second, a ball got loose and Dave lost grip of Bodie. It all happened so fast and yet as I watched, it was in complete slow motion. Bodie flipped backwards off of Dave's shoulders and landed head first on the concrete.
I don't know if I actually saw his head hit the ground because I had already reached the front stairs of the house and hollered as I went through the door - "We need ice and we need Nick and Elizabeth (both doctor's in the family), Bodie just fell...(pause) on his head."
The huge family gathering went silent as Nick and Elizabeth ran over to help and Dave rushed in carrying a hysterical Bodie. My heart sank. This kid doesn't cry. I think the longest I've ever heard him cry from pain - and keep in mind he has a 90%-sized head and a 50%-sized body so he tips over a lot - is maybe 60 seconds. He was going nuts.
And while crying is a sweet sound after a head injury - you don't want the person to be unresponsive - this cry was intense. He was only looking straight forward and all I could think of was my sister-in-law Margo who broke her neck in October. With Nick and Elizabeth's guidance, we decided to lay him on the ground and stabilize his head as they called 911. And to my joy, he hated that position and all he wanted to do was turn his head from left to right.
Where exactly did he land? As I mentioned, I'm not sure I even saw him hit the ground and that was confirmed as two goose eggs began to form on his head - one on the back and one on the left front.
The screaming remained consistent as the paramedics arrived and put an infant neck brace on him, then immobilized him in his car seat - yes, they transport infants in their car seats in an ambulance. Seriously people - that part was completely ridiculous to me, but I digress.
The police arrived and took a report - standard when a minor is injured I am told. And we exited in the ambulance, with Dave and his brother following in a car, as Bodie's little cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles watched him leave - so scary for all of them.
The lead paramedic told me I must sit in the front of the ambulance while Bodie screamed in pain and fear in the back. My "early medical training" (that's what I like to call Bodie's heart surgery time) kicked in. I let her have it; politely of course. The result, I held Bodie's hand and sat right next to him the entire ride. I said a prayer out loud as we traveled and as I spoke the prayer, Bodie went completely silent. It was so comforting to me to hear him calm for the first time as we talked to our Heavenly Father. I knew He was watching over Bodie.
As they wheeled him into the trauma unit, more than a dozen people swarmed his little 25 pound body to evaluate the situation. "Can you please slow down?" I asked. "He's one year old and very scared." This awesome doctor looked me right in the eye and said in total calm and with authority, "Initial vitals are strong. We're going to get some pictures and give you a full report."
Pulse ox, heart rate, blood pressure - the equipment began to be connected to his little body. Chest x-ray, pupil check, people just kept coming. Then in walked Dave and Nick - calm began to replace chaos. They finally allowed me to hold Bodie - still immobilized in the neck brace - and he quieted. As he snuggled in, he looked up across the room, pointed, and said the first thing he'd said since the fall, "Ball." We all smiled. We'd brought a Nerf ball as a comfort for him and it was sitting across the room; he'd spotted it. Dave brought it over and Bodie leaned back and threw it directly at his Uncle Nick.The kid is incredible.
Dave took him - and his ball - into the CT scan to have them image his brain. The two of them looked at fish images on the ceiling of the CT room as Dave sang Old MacDonald to him - he's the best dad. They returned to the room and we waited for the read of the images. The same trauma doc returned with the initial read, "The good news is the brain appears to be okay. It also looks like a skull fracture." Gulp.
I have had a lot of scary medical terms told to me over my lifetime and what I've learned is that the words are sometimes more scary than reality. So my typical reply is, "XXXX sounds really scary, can you break that down for me?" I'm consistently eased when I ask this question and last night was no exception. "Yes," he said, "A fractured skull does sound scary. But it will heal. It did it's job. It protected the brain." He then went on to say in the most compassionate tone, "These things happen. It's an accident. Kids heal." He shared that a few years earlier he was carrying his newborn twins up the stairs and tripped on the top step and one of them went head first into a wall and fractured her skull. She is fine. How interesting that we had that particular trauma doc on that particular night.
The second read came back and confirmed that Bodie did, in fact, have a fractured skull. By this point though they had removed his neck brace and monitoring wires and he was walking up and down the trauma unit's hallway throwing his ball to every doc and nurse that passed by. The "observation" stage of the visit was going well. The doc wanted to make sure he was acting "normal."
A picture is worth a thousand words. Here is Bodie, with his ball, in the trauma unit at the hospital after he'd been "detached" from the monitors and the neck brace was taken off. After a few hours, he got the thumb's up for "normal" and they released him, even allowing us to fly home less than 8 hours later.
The little guy is a walking miracle (again). He continues to impress us with his good nature and joyful spirit. He cracked his skull and has not cried for any pain medication; it's got to hurt, right? In fact, just the opposite - he wanted to run through the Atlanta airport at full speed, climbing on every transport (golf) cart he saw.
After Bodie woke up from his nap today, we decided to take him out for a wagon ride. He walked into the shed and put on his helmet, this made me laugh out loud. Maybe he does understand what happened. And again, because a picture is worth more than words, we took a picture of him eating dinner tonight - pad thai, ginger beef, rice, and dumplings. His chopstick skills leave a lot to be desired, but you get the idea - he's got his appetite back. The little guy is tough.
Things look good. That said, we're not out of the woods yet. There is a chance of a brain bleed - though one did not show in the scan - to manifest itself in the next few weeks. So we are watching Bodie closely, and trying very hard to keep him from hitting his head on anything, (again, I go back to the difficulty of this because he's got such a huge head).
So, if you've got an extra prayer or positive vibe you can send his way, we'd appreciate it. There is no doubt God knows what is going on and again, He's watching over him. But it never hurts to put in a few more requests with the big guy upstairs!
