Had A Scare

by bill - 2008-10-17 ( family / holmes / elizabeth ) [html version]

We had a scare a couple of Wednesdays back with Elizabeth. She was at pre-school/daycare when she tripped and fell head-first onto the pavement outside as everyone was told to get in line to go back inside. We figure, being so competitive, she was racing to get in the front of the line when she tripped. She lost consciousness for a second or two and wasn't verbally responsive even after she woke up. They called Tara, saying something like, "She's not right. You better come pick her up now." So, Tara got her and took her to Vanderbilt ER (because her pediatrician said that was the only place to go), calling me on her way there. We ended up running into each other in the parking lot. I was surprised. I thought they would be arriving in an ambulance. Tara was upset they made her park in the lot, not the drive-through to at least drop her off.

Once inside and checked in, it took 45 minutes before they finally called us back to see a doctor, and that was apparently fast compared to some others there before us. Needless to say, we weren't impressed with the much-vaunted Vanderbilt ER. Through the wait, we had to keep Elizabeth awake because with a concussion there's always the danger if she goes to sleep, she won't ever wake up again. That's what I was told, anyway, though the doctors never mentioned it. And Elizabeth did keep trying to go to sleep, so we were freaking out. I finally returned to the front desk to ask the ditz behind the counter if they could put a priority on a small child with a possible concussion.

A nurse did call us back shortly after that. The doctors checked her out and gave her some liquid Tylenol, after which Elizabeth started slowly coming back to normal. The doctors were great. It was the difficulty getting to see them that irritated us so much. They did a CT scan, which will cost around $2500 probably, we don't know yet, though I fully expect insurance to pay for that. The CT scan came back negative for internal bleeding or skull fracture, luckily, but Elizabeth did have a concussion.

By the time we left the ER, she was feeling fine. And the scrape on her head never did look all that bad, although I wasn't the one who first staunched the bleeding. You can barely tell already that anything had happened. So, we're pretty happy about that. In the ER, Tara and I realized that exactly one year ago that day, we were in Russia meeting Elizabeth for the first time. Funny.

Anyway, all is well again as we prepare for her first Halloween. She's going to be Minnie Mouse, and she says Tara will be a witch and I will be a pirate. I don't know how she came up with those, but that's what Elizabeth has decided.

We just got back from the store, having bought a new digital camera. Actually, it was the third store we visited because we couldn't "test drive" the ones at Staples or HH Gregg. The camera we had in California died in California. The replacement is an Olympus FE-310. 8 megapixels, 5x zoom, blah blah blah. $100 at Sam's Club, plus the 2gb memory card, it totalled $130. Of course, the first picture ever taken with it was of Elizabeth ... and Chandler.