our first trip to the emergency room

I won't be writing about this on my other blog that my family reads. My mother would freak out, she's such a worrier to begin with, I feel like she's always watching how we do everything, and constantly worrying that one of the babies is going to get hurt. I think we're very careful, but I also think we try not to be overly cautious, we believe that they need to explore their world, and the occasional stumble or bump is part of how they learn.

But this is not that kind of situation. This was carelessness. Not by me.

Callie fell off the changing table. It's a high changing table - we're tall people, and we use a dresser that's taller than the average changing table. So it was about a 4 foot fall. Onto a hard wood floor. Jim was changing her. He turned his back to lean out the door to ask me what to dress her in. And thud, she hit the floor.

The first temptation (after realizing that she was conscious and not screaming in pain) would have been for me to start screaming at him about how careless he had been, he knows not to turn his back on her, he knows that she tries to flip over on that changing pad and crawl around. But I could immediately see by the look on his face that any guilt I might have leveled on him would be nothing compared to what he was thinking of himself. So I said nothing, and just went about tending to my daughter.

It was about 2 hours past her nap time, as we had been out running around. So she was already fussy and very groggy. So it's hard to tell whether a child has hit their head in that circumstance. We called the consulting nurse, she put us through a batter of questions, we collectively agreed that she was probably fine, but we were to make sure she woke every 3 hours through the night, not give her any pain meds that might mask symptoms, immediately bring her in if she passed out, started vomiting, etc. But she seemed fine.

Until we sat her down on the floor and she tried to crawl. She either won't or can't put weight on her left arm. So we called again, and were told to take her to the ER.

To make a long story slightly less long - net was they could find nothing wrong with her arm. They did x-rays, and nothing was broken. They examined her very thoroughly and found nothing, and she appears to be in no pain. The arm just collapses under her when she tries to put weight on it to crawl. Maybe it's just bruised, maybe it's just sore enough that she's favoring it. They don't know. They sent us home and told us to call our pediatrician monday morning if she doesn't seem better - maybe a night's rest will help.

Well that was yesterday, and she still can't crawl. So we'll be calling first thing monday. I don't think it's broken or fractured, or torn anything - she would be in pain. It seems more like a nerve thing - like the strength just isn't there.

Jim is nearly beside himself, I've never seen him so low. He feels so guilty.

I'll provide an update when I have one.

Funny - I always thought it would be boys that landed you in the ER, I didn't expect the girl to be the first one there.

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In other news - Danny is doing well. I think the CS and the PT are helping him. He's still not rolling or crawling, but he's trying more to get his knees up under him, and he's reaching better for things. The physical therapist was very impressed with his progress at his appointment last week, we have more home exercises to do and we take him back for another check in 3 weeks.