From Sledding To The ER

The last time we took the boys sledding they had a terrible time mostly because their feet were so cold. Two pairs of socks in rain boots is just not enough, lesson learned. Since then I somehow amassed several pairs of used snow boots (5 to be exact). When I told the boys we were going again they weren't too excited until I told them that their feet wouldn't be cold because they'd be wearing snow boots. Then they just couldn't wait to go! We got up there and were having so much fun and after quite a while we decided to go to a steeper hill. Well at one point Thomas goes down and was heading towards a big rock, so Phil, who was standing guard near by swooped in to stop the collision. He got there in time but Thomas must have been going too fast and he bumped his head on Phil's arm. He started crying and then his eyes started rolling back which scared the crap out of all of us! He was pretty upset and acting just a little woozy so we decided to head back to the car and see if he didn't improve.

We tried cheering him up with some left over donuts we had in the car but then he seemed rather sleepy so we tried keeping him awake with candy. Sleepiness is a sign of a concussion but it was well past his nap time so he may have just been tired from all the activity. Once we got some reception on our phones I called his doctors office and spoke to the doctor on call for advise. She thought it would be a good idea to take him to urgent care but it was up to us since he didn't sound too bad. Well after I hung up the phone Thomas barfed up a good amount (vomiting is another sign of a concussion). So at that point we really wanted to get him to urgent care. The closest one wasn't too far but when we got there it was closed since it was Christmas day. So we drove a few minutes to the next one and again they were closed even though their phone message said they were open! Ugh! Again we drove another few minutes to a hospital and were so relieved to be there! We'd been driving for almost an hour and all the while making sure Thomas didn't go to sleep (which we were ill advised to do).

The doctor thinks he may have just thrown up because of a combination of all the junk we fed him (we weren't thinking, clearly a mistake) and the altitude OR because he suffered from a minor concussion. They gave us the option of a ct scan which was not advisable because his developing brain would get some radiation from that and because he'd only thrown up once (twice would definitely warrant a ct scan). I started running for the hills when I heard radiation, no way, not for my baby! So we opted for the second option which was give him some apple juice and if he didn't throw it up within the next half hour we were good to go home as long as we checked on him every couple of hours through out the night (waking him up and making sure he wasn't acting strange). Thomas slept between Phil and I and the night went without incident so he's all good now, the bump didn't even bruise up too bad and went away completely after two days.

Thomas requested that next time we go sledding we go somewhere without so many rocks and he'd like to wear a helmet. And I completely agree with him!

Thomas

Caleb

It was cold and lightly snowing but that didn't stop us from having fun!

TEC

With my boys

Mr T waiting to be seen.
Caleb and Eli were with our friend K in the waiting room. 

His owie

Drinking his apple juice