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January 27, 2005

Adventures in parenting - The ER

Skull vs Windowsill -- Windowsill wins.

I don't care how old they get, when they are hurt they are still the little kid you took to the ER for a broken wrist (soccer) or for high fevers or for various stitches because little-kid eyebrows and coffee tables don't get along.

So Heather, 21 y/o, who has worked about 100 hrs in the last couple of weeks, worked yet another double yesterday and decides to go out with friends to let off some steam. Nice restaurant, a few drinks on an empty stomach, comes home (no she was not driving...if she drives she never has ANYthing to drink) stumbles to bed and flops down backwards on it. Said bed up against the wall under her window.

2 am in the morning, Siobhan is waking us up because Heather is curled on her bed crying, in pain, a bloodstain about the size of a dinnerplate under her head.

Don't these kinds of firedrills always happen in the wee hours of the morning?

Fire Department comes out, paramedics get her to cooperate and see a 3 inch laceration near the top of the back of her head (scalps bleed like sum-bitch), bandage her head like a mummy, backboard her and onto the ER -- Where they are having a full-house night, too! Young man in the bed next to her is waiting for his brother to pick him up after being treated for stab wounds.

whoa

Maybe it's a good thing Heather is thickheaded (very stubborn child) as she's shoved out of the ER ("we need your bed for serious cases") within a few hours with 4 steel staples in her scalp and no memory between the times of leaving the restaurant and waking up in the ER.

Me? I'm going to try to function the rest of the day with two segments of a couple of hours of sleep.

When she feels better we all can give her a rash of sh*t about last night (this morning? Jaysus on a Pony my time clock is going to be all out of whack today). She kept apologizing to the paramedics who were taking care of her until one fine guy said, "Now stop that. There is not a person in this room who hasn't tied one on now and then. Hopefully we learn our lesson about too many martinis on an empty stomach." And there were agreeing chuckles.

Hope this was her epiphany. It will be a fairly cheap one, at that.

Posted by Darleen at January 27, 2005 09:11 AM

Comments

Ok. When you saw the blood, did you start screaming and running around the house begging Jesus to let her live????

Because, no lie, that's exactly what I would have done!

Glad she's ok!

Posted by: y at January 27, 2005 10:07 AM

- If shes one tenth as intelligent as her mother, she'll hear the bell tolling on this one. We all have our share of "bumps" in life, but when you get so out of control you can't identify or place the details of the bumps its a definate wakeup call...Thankfully she's ok and this wasn't major....just a major lesson perhaps...

Posted by: Big Bang Hunter at January 27, 2005 10:45 AM

She sounds like a prety responsible daughter.....I wish I had stopped at a few stiches mark, but I went right on by that yellow light, for about 20 more yrs.

Posted by: Rubin at January 28, 2005 01:25 AM

I can appreicate your advetures: I've been to more ERs than I care to count (Zagat's wants me to write a piece on Hospital Cafeterias for their NY, NJ & PA edition), and I gave up on sleep long ago -- and my kids are only 9 & 2.

Posted by: Charlie on the Pennsylvania Turnpike at January 28, 2005 07:18 AM

hehe the joys of parenthood are neverending

Posted by: Digger at January 28, 2005 06:59 PM

They are unnerving - I once told my son, who was waiting to be seen in one how "big" he was being. He was 23 at the time and had had a hot radiator blow up in his face at work...
He and his sister gave me the "we have no idea who you are" look.

Glad she's okay - humiliation is a hell of a lesson.

Posted by: Sal at January 29, 2005 05:23 AM

I am glad your daughter survived her mishap. I hope she sees the danger of drinking to the point of not knowing what she is doing. She could have lost all reasoning and wandered off somewhere to be mugged or worse.
It happens when people, "put a thief in their mouth to steal their brains."

Posted by: Morgan Painter at January 30, 2005 12:21 PM