The best laid plans…

Remember what I said yesterday about my plans for today?  Yeah, well.  After a long and stressful day with my mom at the neurosurgeon’s office in the city, I arrived back in town just in time to attend the Red Cross fund raiser.  I called David to let him know I was on my way just as he was getting ready to call me.  To tell me that he had our son, Chris, and they were on their way to the Emergency Room.  Chris had been riding his bike on the bike path, the front wheel came off and he did a face plant.

I honestly expected him to be covered in blood and to have several missing teeth.  My biggest concern, however, was head injury.  You see, this is my kid who seems to collect concussions like they are going to be worth something someday.  His first and most serious was at age five when he and I were in a car accident.  He spent a night in the hospital over that one.  Later on, his best friend accidentally caught him in the side of the head with a baseball bat.  She felt just awful about it.  Yeah, it was a girl – a girl who played baseball and had taken a really good swing.  And then there were a couple of minor episodes while playing soccer.

Despite the concussions, he’s really not the accident prone type, mainly because he has never been a dare-devil.  Last night’s accident was just one of those freak things.  Fortunately he had two friends with him at the time and even more fortunately, David was at the Red Cross event only a few blocks away.  As a volunteer fire fighter with First Responder training, it couldn’t have been much better.  He had his medical bag with him so he was able to give him some sterile gauze and an ice pack immediately.

So, after about three hours in the E.R. the verdict was: no broken bones (they x-rayed his face and both hands), two chipped front teeth, a fairly nasty abrasion on his chin and some lesser abrasions and bruising on his hands and knee.  Best of all, no concussion.  They gave him a pain shot and sent him home with 800 mg. Ibuprofen, antibiotics, a few pain pills (if needed) and antibiotic ointment.  I have to add that we could not have been more pleased with the treatment he received last night.  Because we are part Native American, we have access to free health care at the gorgeous new Indian hospital here in town.  We do have insurance as well and they will bill them.  However, even if we didn’t, his treatment would be covered 100%.  We will not receive any bill for what was done last night and even the meds were free to us.  One of my thoughts during our time there last night was how I wished everyone could have that.  Especially in an emergency situation it is such a relief not to worry about how much it’s going to cost. 

We treated and bandaged his wounds when we got home and I had picked up some meal replacement shakes because he hadn’t eaten yet.  We had him spend the night over here in his old bedroom in case he needed anything.  I told him to call my cell phone if he needed pain medicine during the night but he never did.  In fact, he’s still asleep this morning (David woke him and checked on him around 7:45 and he was okay).

I’m waiting for a phone call back from the dentist.  I’m guessing he will just be examining him today and then make plans for the repairs next week.  The tooth part is what freaked Chris out the most, which I can well understand.  But teeth can be fixed and his injuries could have been so much worse.  I just keep thinking how very lucky he was that it wasn’t any worse.

*Update:  I was looking at Facebook and got a little chuckle out of something.  Last night Lisa had posted to her brother that she would be in Norman today if there was anything she could get for him.  This was his reply:

“Love you! I’m doped, bandaged, and watching old “G.I. Joe” cartoons.”

I can’t recall if I talked about it here but Lisa was in a car accident a couple of weeks ago and suffered a whiplash injury.  I think that’s more than enough accidents for my kids, don’t you think?