Sitting with Erika, a popsicle and book (not happy)
At approximately 2:30PM I was working in my lovely 6ft X 6ft cubicle at work, when the phone rang and it was Erika. “The hospital called and said they were pretty sure there is a fracture and they want to do a cat scan.” Which is about the time I started hitting the panic button. Don’t ask me why, I just got worried. I sent 2 emails out to cancel whatever I was doing the rest of the day and headed straight to the hospital. Erika picked up Mira from daycare and headed to the hospital. Yes, that’s right, Mira was at daycare. According to Heidi, the person who takes care of Mira there, “She’s acting completely normal.”
On my way to the hospital, I called my buddy, Matt Bozung and left a message along the lines of. “If you get in sometime in the next 20 minutes, call me. Cause I need to talk, otherwise don’t bother. I’m about to head straight into a hurricane and there’s nothing I can do about it.” In writing they call this foreshadowing: is a literary device in which an author drops subtle hints about plot developments to come later in the story. Ok, maybe hurricane isn’t so subtle, but you get the idea.
We arrived at the hospital maybe 15 minutes apart. And headed back to a room in the ER. They knew we were coming, so they had already set a room aside for us. In the room Mira got her vitals and started to get worried.
They took her in for the cat scan and I though for sure we’d need to sedate her. She does not deal well with stressful situations. But I’ve gotta admit, she’s not at all like her daddy. I’m a kicker, puncher and flailler. She just sat there and screamed, but she held still. Which was nice, as the last thing you ever want is for someone to have to sedate your child. Most problems in hospitals come from anesthesia, not surgery or misdiagnosises. Regardless of what you may see on TV.
Waiting for the result of the cat scan, I took this gem of a pic whilst Mira was waiting. Oh, it’s a beauty of a shot and it let’s you know Mira’s mental state:
The cat scan came back and they told us that Mira had a small hematoma but they didn’t think it was too big. However, they had spoken with the neurosurgeons downtown and they wanted to see Mira and take another look at the cat scans. Which means Mira and I got to enjoy an ambulance ride downtown.
Now, imagine Mira in the picture above. Now imagine someone else comes in and gives her an IV and takes 5 samples of blood to have blood work done. Got that image? Good, now imagine that 3 more strangers come in and proceed to strap her to a gurney and roll her out to an ambulance and drive away. I was able to stay with her for the entire ride downtown. Which I believe helped a little, but believe me that she was completely terrified. I was able to actually get a crash course in head injuries from the RN that rode over to Rainbow Babies with us.
We arrived at Rainbow Babies, the Children’s hospital associated with University Hospital in Clevelend. The most well know hospital in Cleveland is the Cleveland Clinic, but the most well know children’s hospital in Cleveland is Rainbow Babies. So, I at least to a little bit of comfort thinking that we were in good hands.
At Rainbow Babies, we were immediately admitted to the PICU. For those that don’t know, the PICU is where the really, really sick kids go. At this point Erika and I were concerned but, holding together pretty well. We found out that Mira’s injury, an epideral hematoma, was small and probably wouldn’t need any surgery. But just to be safe, they decided to keep her overnight and did not let her eat any foods.
Once again, I was still very optimistic that we would be going home sometime the following day. I even drove home that night and told Erika I would be back in the morning.
The following morning, things would get worse quickly. But this pic is about how things looked when I left the night of Monday, December 1st around 11PM (assuming the morning would bring them back home):
Mira and Erika in the PICU