Recovery
I’m at the end of a long and tiring weekend. Usually, I look forward to getting a little exercise, communing with the family and/or friends, probably doing some work (usually with the NCWP), and having a chance to watch a dvd of Battlestar Galactica (or something similarly geeky). Not so much the case this weekend.
Things got off to a rocky (and early) start on Thursday. I’d worked at home, and around 3:00, as is generally the case, my two younger sons (11 and 14) arrived home from school. I was a little surprised to see my 11 year old, as he normally has guitar lessons after school on Thursdays, and was asking him why he was home when the 14 year old came into the room, and got my attention with an odd-sounding “Dad?”
I looked up, and saw him bleeding from a couple places on each hand, as well as from three nasty-looking wounds on his face. Now, this isn’t the first time he’s shown up at home bleeding; he is, after all, the only of the three boys who has necessitated any trips to the ER. But his appearance nonetheless left me nonplussed, and I began to interrogate him:
“What happened?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you fall off your bike?”
“I don’t know.”
“Were you wearing your helmet?”
“I don’t know. I think so.”
“You think so? What do you mean? Were you or weren’t you?”
“I don’t know. I usually do.”
“How can you not know? And where did this happen?”
“I don’t know. It’s all kind of fuzzy. I think I broke my braces.”
At this point, I figure out that the “I don’t knows” were different than the typical, slightly air-headed responses Tyler often provides in response to queries. The fuzzy-headedness, in particular, was worrying, and I told my younger son that I was taking Tyler to the hospital.
On the way to the ER, Tyler began a pattern of repeating the same questions and statements that was uncanny (in the Freudian, holy-shit-this-is-NOT-normal sense of the word). It went like this:
“What happened to me?”
“I think you wrecked your bike.”
“My jaw hurts.”
“Yes, that’s where you hit when you crashed.”
“I think my braces are broken.”
“Well, don’t worry about that now.”
“I have a headache.”
“Yes, you did hit your head when you crashed.”
At this point, he would pause for 30 seconds or a minute, and then start the whole mantra again. This went on throughout his trip to the ER (about 3 hours, in total, during which he was X-rayed, CT-scanned, cleaned, bandaged, and slinged, after being diagnosed with a slight shoulder separation and a serious concussion), and only began to subside around 6 hours later. Rinse and repeat, as they say. It was disconcerting.
One of the dangers of concussion is the possibility of brain hemorrhage and lapse into coma, and so I stayed up almost all night, checking on him every 30 minutes at first, stretching to 45 and then 60 minute intervals as the night progressed. I didn’t have to wake him fully, but did need to disturb him enough to see that he was able to be roused from sleep. It made for a tiring night, after a pretty stressful and frightening day.
Friday, then, I was not on top of my game. I was fairly tired, but stayed at home with Tyler, trying to make sure he was feeling on the mend, rather than the opposite. He had an appetite, ate pretty well, needed nothing beyond some ibuprofen for headache, and had left behind his mantra. He still had no recollection of his bike wreck, and couldn’t really tell us much about the rest of the week at school (but to be fair, I don’t know that he’d be able to tell us much about any given school week on a Friday, so I don’t consider that to be too much of an indicator of well-being). He did take the news that he was suffering from a concussion with surprise, and on more than one occasion, but by the day’s end he knew it was Friday, and that he had a concussion.
Meanwhile, we were also in the throes of finishing the details for Tyler’s older brother’s prom date. We had to fit and pick up the tux, finalize and confirm reservations for dinner and flowers etc., and make sure that things were set for his big evening the next day. At the same time, we were organizing for his younger brother’s week-long trip to Yosemite with his fellow sixth-graders.
At least on Friday night, I had a decent night’s sleep.
Saturday was busy, with eldest boy spending the morning at Chico State on a field trip for physics to test out popsicle stick bridges they’d made (his team: 2nd place strength @ 189 lbs; 4th place efficiency; 1st place aesthetics), Tyler’s friend Will coming over to spend some time with the invalid (mostly video gaming and Homestar Runner-ing), and picking up flowers and other last-minute prom preparations. The plan was for Drew and his friend, Tim, to spend the night at our house after their dates, and that worked out pretty well, although they made a half-midnight stop to grab swimsuits before going to Tim’s date’s house to swim prior to a trip to Jack’s restaurant for pancakes, and then getting home for good around 4:30. And the time between their arrivals at the house were filled with shouting from neighbors who, I guess, were having a pre-Mother’s Day party or something that had guests leaving, over and over, between 1 and 2:30.
So not a lot of sleep last night, either.
We decided, a couple days back, actually, that we’d celebrate Mother’s Day next weekend. Good thing, too, since I had nothing planned, and my kids were a little distracted, all told. I did manage to trim all the hedges, and test/troubleshoot the sprinklers (we’re expecting a week of near-90 temps), so it wasn’t a total loss of a day. But I didn’t quite get everything done that I would have liked. Of course, Drew was an exhausted basket-case of a kid after getting almost no sleep, and Tyler–despite doing much better now; good enough to give school a try again tomorrow–was still on a take-it-easy-kid program, so it fell to Seth to help me out with the yardwork. He was probably a little extra-motivated to be helpful because he’s trying to keep us on his good side; he doesn’t want anything to get in the way of his impending Yosemite departure.
So now, from 10-11 pm Sunday, I decided to write in my blog. I think it’s because I can’t be trusted to do anything more intellectually challenging at the moment.
Maybe I should just go to bed.
May 10 2009 09:57 pm | Uncategorized
I’m exhausted just from reading this. What a long and scary and overwhelming weekend. I’m glad everyone came out of it okay. See you Wednesday.