There’s never a dull moment with kids. I’ve come to fully accept this now. Yesterday Faith was being her usual, playful self when she lept off the couch — at least that’s what it looked like to Allie and I. In retrospect, I am not sure if she was trying to jump or if she was trying to reach her water that was on a wooden table a few feet away.
Well it wouldn’t be an adventure if that leap were uneventful. She ended up crashing to the floor but not before hitting her forehead on the edge of said table, bouncing off, and hitting it again on the same edge.
There was a brief, momentary silence when her body landed on the ground in front of us. The three of us were sitting on the cough together — myself on the left, Allie on the right, and Faith in between. We both scrambled off the couch. I grabbed the table (because Faith was slightly underneath in after gravity had done its job), and Allie picked our little kiddo up off the ground.
Her screams of pain and shock were slightly reassuring; at least she was conscious. I could see Allie trying to look at her head and see what was the matter. As she tried to find the point of impact and fearing the worst, I ran off to the freezer to grab some ice.
By the time I had returned Faith had a large bruise and a growing hematoma on her right forehead. I was relieved to find that I was returning to a site without any blood. After what seemed like forever she finally started to calm down and actually allowed Allie to apply the ice and keep it on her forehead. In between icings she would tell us, “my head hurts.”
I tried to cheer her up and offered her some apple sauce. As I was trying to entice her, Allie and I made eye contact and she knowingly nodded her head. I succeeded and Faith agreed to have some apple sauce.
I returned with a packet of apple sauce half-squeezed into a small bowl. The apple sauce was mixed in with cherry-flavored liquid acetaminophen. She ate it up.
After a quick bath and the usual bedtime routine Faith finally went to sleep. But our adventure was only just beginning. At around 1 AM we were awakened by Faith coughing rather violently on the baby monitor. Her coughing was enough to wake her up and so I went to check on her. She cried and asked to be picked up. I carried her a bit but she kept coughing and by the sound of it she was trying to vomit. I took her to the bathroom and she threw up a small amount of dinner onto the
Over the next hour she continued throwing up intermittently and by 2 AM we had a total of 6 episodes and several sets of sheets running in the washing machine. We decided to head to the Emergency Department. Without any other infectious symptoms, she seemed to be having nausea and vomiting in the setting of recent head trauma.
Once she was checked in they took us back for a quick set of vitals and a screening exam. The nurse asked me if I worked there as he had recognized our last name. I replied that I was a hospitalist and he nodded. We then went to another exam room where a resident soon met us for a quick interview and exam. After hearing our story, they called over to the Pediatrics ED and quickly got us a bed there where we waited for the ED Resident physician and eventually ED Attending physician to finally see us.
After all of them had interviewed us and examined her, they all decided on getting a CT scan of her head to rule out any intracranial bleeding. By this time we had watched her throw up 10 times. Number 7 was on the freeway on the way to the hospital. Number 8 was during the screening exam. Number 9 was after we had gotten a gurney in the pediatric emergency department. And number 10 happened around 3:15 AM and was after they tried giving her some medication to relieve her nausea.
To top off the night, the CT scanner next to the emergency department was down so we had to wait for the one a couple floors up to be available. So we waited. And waited.
Faith eventually started waking up and was provided with a movie to watch, stickers (2), and a coloring page with several crayons. The nurses down there loved her as she tried to wave and interact with them as best she could.
Needless to say, we were relieved to find out the CT scan was negative for any bleeding. It did show a contusion which we expected. They went ahead and gave her some apple juice. She guzzled half the packet before falling asleep. After showing that she could tolerate oral intake they discharged us home.
We got home and I put her back to bed. It was 6:30 AM by the time I was confident she was asleep. While Faith and I were able to sleep in until around 11 AM, Allie went to take a shower and then headed off back to the hospital for work.
It was a night of much activity. But I guess that’s just life with a toddler.
At least the kiddo is home safe now.
