Yesterday, upstairs trying to relax, Deepti downstairs watching TV. Naina decides its boring with dada and heads down to Deepti. Negligent parent that I am, I watched her half-way. My second mistake in two weeks. According to Deepti, N got to the last two or three steps before tripping and landing on the floor with her hands held out in front of her. Couldn't actually hear the clavicle fracturing, but we might find out soon.
N was upset. Usually these are short outbursts of tears which last 10 minutes. This time she didn't settle and kept grabbing her neck region. We drove for a while to calm her down and came home again, but she started screaming again. After 30 minutes we decided to see a doctor. At 8pm on a Thursday night. A visit to the ED, sigh.
Unsure of which hospital, we headed to the maternity hospital. N settled in the car; that nervous settle; not sure to go home or keep going. We kept going. Arriving, she was still quiet; I expected to park the car and join them, only for Deepti to say, let's go home. We stayed.
N got attention from a stern looking triage nurse who silently scolded uneducated parent-types like us for not knowing that our daughter didn't have a major head injury or a minor head injury and should have been seen by the GP in the morning. This knowledge is imparted by reading a government website.
Waiting. 45 minutes in a public ED can be educational; a patient informed everyone that AIDS was invented by George Bush's father.
N was seen by a doctor who ordered an X-ray. This was going to be fun. Waiting for the doctor to finish talking to her boss, N emptied her bowels into our last remaining clean nappy. Mental note; keep spare nappy and wipe pack in the car.
So, now N was stripped of her clothes, cold, tired, had recently evacuated her bowels and was wearing hospital panties, there was a very large slightly deadly x-ray emitting machine hanging over her head, her head was resting against a hard metal plate, her clumsy dad was trying to pin down her head with one hand and her arms with the other and her mother had to leave the room because she was 6 month pregnant. I think that captures the scene well!
She got the knack the second time and lay still; the x-ray done N burst into tears again saying No no no no... remarkably resilient this one, there's a lot I can learn.
N's x-ray showed no fractures at the moment. There's no visible damage, but a fracture in someone so small may only be visible in a few days as it heals, but that will be only after five days of pain and decreasing use of her arm. And fractured clavicles can't be repaired surgically and two year olds don't like slings. So N's going to be in pain as she moves her arm for up to two to three weeks and shouldn't lift any heavy items like bricks or pot plants. That's what the government website told me Miss stern faced triage nurse!!
N collapsed asleep in the car and didn't wake till the morning. It was tense at the time; but like the car, it could have been a lot worse. For this we are grateful. Naina spent today lying down (not exactly sure why as her legs were working fine after the fall yesterday) being fed panadol and nurofen and chicken soup and watching Elmo and In The Night Garden. Not a bad lifestyle really.
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3 comments:
Poor Naina! How scary! And poor you guys! Hope that she recovers quickly.
Harriet stepped backwards off the bottom step at the front of our place the other week and ended up with sore ankles or feet or something. It didn't help her that I watched it happen. I felt terrible. She limped a bit that day but by the next day she was fine again.
Hm, I can also confess that I've let Jinu fall down steps a couple of times. Once rolling down five steps in a playground. But shamefully, I felt more guilty with the two steps in a restaurant (people were watching me that time). Fortunately, we had nothing more than bruises, so I didn't learn any lessons. Now we live in a second floor apt with no lift. I will learn from your experiences, you bad parents, you!
Hey -don't feel bad about being told off by a nurse- happens to me all the time!
Can I suggest that you in future you take her to a paediatric hospital- one where they are used to these things? Try Monash next time...and there will be a next time..it's part of growing up...xxx
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