I would have posted this sooner but 48 hours in the past week were spent in a flu coma in which I consumed only crackers and slept like 20 hours a day. Therefore, I felt like a grizzly bear coming out of hibernation, starving and ready to tackle the loads of laundry and mass chaos that ensues when I'm out of commission for more than a few hours. I have to say that Rich did a wonderful job with the kids keeping them away from me and my germs and keeping them entertained for almost 2 full days while I slept upstairs. There were times when I was a little concerned about the massive amount of scraping and crashes coming from downstairs. But since they weren't followed by wailing, I figured it was fine. Turned out that Beckett has been into making piles of toys and forts and moved every single toy (large and small) from the playroom into the empty dining room to make a fort. I almost died, or barfed in my case, when I came down to see the destruction. But, Rich put it all back and cleaned the kitchen and even went to the store to get me crackers and 7-up. So sweet.
He walked with them over to Alterra for lunch on Tuesday and I watched them walk down the street and it just melted my heart. I never really see the whole crew from afar because I'm always in the middle of it but it is really something to watch especially since they look so little next to Rich. Also, he had dressed everyone so you should have seen the outfits between the heart pants, striped shirts, patterned sweaters, pink shoes...and that was just on Beckett. Just kidding. They were just wandering along, poking things with sticks and pointing at the sky and holding hands. It is pretty amazing when I have a chance to sit back and watch.
I'm getting all emotional because we had a major accident with Eloise on Monday. She was running and fell and hit her nose between the eyes on the edge of a bench. I saw it happen and when she lifted her head up, blood was squirting out like a foot. I jumped up, grabbed her with my hand over the wound to stop the bleeding and ran into the kitchen and grabbed a towel to put pressure. The weird thing is that I kind of went into nurse mode. Sounds cold but honestly it was one of those times that I'm not even sure I could hear her crying, all I could think was to stop the bleeding. And the reason I thought that was because the blood was pulsating out in intervals like you would see with an artery. I had a moment of perplexity when I was looking at her with blood pumping out between her eyes and I thought "That's weird, why is it pulsating? There are no major arteries there." Knowing how serious it is cut an artery I was panicked about stopping the bleeding- with a dirty dishtowel.
You have no sense of time in these situations but all I know is every time I tried it take my hand off her head so I could dial the phone to call someone, it started to bleed again. That is when I freaked out a little bit. Not only could I not stop the bleeding, I couldn't call anyone AND Addy and Beckett were watching the whole thing and they were screaming hysterically as well. Finally I got it stop enough to call Bambi to see if she could come over to watch the other two while I took Eloise to the ED. I don't even remember what I said but I must have sounded freaked out because we were only on the phone for a few seconds and she rushed over. BTW- Rich was in Chicago and had taken the train so that is why I called Bambi first.
Luckily, this happened while we had our neighbors over for a play date so their dad, Krystoff, was helping to keep the other two calm and offered to take Addy and Beckett to their house until Bambi got there and helped me to figure out to turn on the TV for distraction.
I realized that I needed to just take a breath and assess the situation. I couldn't drive Eloise myself because she was bleeding too much and I couldn't really figure out if it was coming from more places other than the divot in her nose. And I didn't want to risk driving her myself if she was bleeding from her mouth and could possibly choke. I think I was talking out loud wondering if I needed to call am ambulance. I know at one point I said, "I feel like I'm going to puke." So I just waited, holding pressure on her nose and rocking her back and forth until Bambi got there. Oh and I thought to give her Motrin for the pain.
I can't imagine what it looked like walking into our house at that moment and I can't thank Bambi enough. It must have been horrific. I ended up putting Eloise in the car and driving her myself. She had calmed down, stopped bleeding and was asking to "go, go, go." There are closer hospitals but I am a huge proponent that if it is not a life threatening emergency, go to the hospital that best suits your situation and for us, it was Children's which is about 20 minutes away. They are used to these situations, they have specialists, and as former ED nurse I can tell you that when you used to working primarily with adults, you are not always in tune to the special needs of kids or toddlers.
Eloise fell asleep on the way there which was good. I thought the bleeding had stopped but then started again while she was sleeping which looked just terrible but I knew she was fine so I kept driving. We finally got there, were taken into a room pretty quickly and then we waited. For maybe 1.5 hours. Once we were there I felt much better and wasn't too worked up over waiting. Eloise was surprisingly calm the whole time we were waiting. She really only got upset when I wouldn't let her have a drink. They were trying to figure out what to use for sedation and how soon prior she had anything to eat or drink was a concern. Funny thing is that Eloise kept asking for Beckett. They are not really apart very often so I think she was most concerned about where her siblings were. There was a little kid sized chair in the room and she kept wanting to sit on it and then would get up and point and say, "Beckett" probably knowing that Beckett would like to push it around the room. Every time she cried or got up to walk around it would start bleeding again. Like this.
I eventually got her lay down and watch tv which lasted about 5 minutes.
Finally they gave her oral Verseed for sedation and said that they would come back in 10 minutes. After about 7 minutes Eloise became what I like to call "the belligerent drunk." She was drowsy but irritated so all she wanted to do was sit on the little chair. But she couldn't sit up without tipping over and every time I tried to steady her she would shake her hand and say, "No Mama, No Mama." Except it was more like, "looow, naaaaanaaaaaaa...., looooooow" with her eyes half closed.
They preferred not to tie her down so they had a child life specialist there whose sole responsibility was to entertain Eloise while myself and one more nurse held her down. I probably would not do that again. I was super nauseous which is pretty uncharacteristic of me. One Popsicle and 5 stitches later it was done. That's why we went to Children's- the child life specialist. She was so much better than me at calming and distracting Eloise. She had a whole arsenal of Popsicles, books, stickers, whirly toys, things that light up- you name it. She also helped me pry away the filthy lovey that Eloise was holding through the whole ordeal and put it in a biohazard bag. See why...
Eloise was still groggy and wobbly once we got home and couldn't walk although she thought she could. Finally after seeing her Daddy and reading a book, the little thing fell asleep.
24 hours later...
48 hours later...
72 hours later... She probably looked the worst this day with the swelling and black eyes.
5 days later playing in the leaves.
Tonight (6 days later) helping me make pizza.
She is going to have a pretty good scar but I've already gotten some good tips from friends about helping to heal and minimize scarring. Eloise seems to be pretty much back to normal with a few exceptions- she was sucking on her lovey much more this week than normal so you can see her chin is raw and red and she is having a hard time getting to sleep at night. Whenever something big happens or something changes it always takes Eloise a few weeks to recover from it and this is certainly not an exception. Last night I don't think she went to bed until 10:30 (they go down at 7:30) and screamed and cried every time I left the room. So, it has been a long week for everyone. When this all happened on Monday I was concerned about Addy and Beckett being traumatized too from the whole scene but they can talk about the blood without being scared and know that Eloise is hurt on her nose. But now Addy wants to go to the hospital too. I keep telling her that she was at the hospital when she was a little baby. When I ask her why she was at the hospital as a baby she says, "Tiny, tiny, tiny." Yep, they were tiny little munchkins. Still are.
I was going to call this post "The belligerent drunk" but that doesn't really sum it all up. I always thought I had a stomach of steel when it comes to blood but I almost lost it a few times on Monday. I don't know how many times I've held down someone else's child for stitches but it is a whole different story when it is your own child. Then on Friday I got a tour of the center where Eloise will be starting her in-class therapy 2 days a week. When I saw the classrooms and the toys and the activity and the kids I was excited for her and sad that my other two were not going to be going as well because they would love it. Eloise is not going to love it at first. But I'm hoping that she will grow to love it and will be a positive learning environment for her.
When they explained to me that the first day I will be dropping her off at the front door and leaving I almost started to cry. I can't imagine how terrified she will be. This will be all new to her. New place, new people, no siblings, no parents. All for the child with severe separation anxiety. I know she will be clinging to me and they will have to pry her out of my arms. I'm broken hearted just thinking about it. But she's tough. She's a lot tougher than I give her credit for. On the 31st, her first day in class, I hope she will be a lot tougher than me.
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