Friday, October 10, 2008

There Will Be Blood

Lots of Blood. This should explain at least in part, my cryptic reference about my rough couple of days and the bounce house. Also, have you noticed my recent affinity for stealing movie titles to name my blog posts?

So Joe is out of town and I just picked up yet another new doctor (this one an ophthalmologist) but when my friend Danielle asked me to watch her 2 kids so her and hubby Andres could start moving into their new house I jumped at the chance. We owe them big time seeing as how they are the only ones, excluding family that we trust to watch the kids and we seldom are given the chance to return the favor.

After playing with some toys in the living room, we all descended into the garage for some energy-burning fun in the bounce house. Well, not 5 or 10 minutes into their play session, Jadyn took a tumble off the slide and smacked her head. She immediately started crying as I scooped her up to comfort her. Before I could even start searching for goose eggs, I noticed large drops of blood splattering the ground. Frantically I searched the side of her head where she fell and found a tangle of blood soaked hair. I ran inside and applied pressure to the wound while simultaneously grabbing the phone. I think my biggest fear at that point was the fact that not only was Jadyn hurt, but that I had 2 extra kids with me. So I called Danielle and told her I thought I needed to take Jadyn to the ER and could she please come as quickly as possible. While waiting, I wrangled the other kids from the bounce house, gave Jadyn her pacifier to help calm her down and began the task of rinsing away some of the blood so I could assess the wound. As the boys passed through the kitchen they commented that their was a mess on the ground as well as on me and Jadyn. As Danielle arrived, I was able to wipe away enough blood to see that thankfully Jadyn had only sustained a small puncture type gash. I knew that head wounds bled a lot but wow! There was a lot of blood for such a small cut. Danielle took one look at me and commented about the amount of blood. Apparently when I was comforting Jadyn and before I realized she was bleeding she had leaned her wounded side against my cheek. With the situation calming down and me now able to feel the blood drying on my face, I stole away to clean myself up. I looked like something out of a horror movie! No wonder Jadyn was so shaken up and the boys commented on the mess. Good thing Halloween is around the corner.

So the good news is that Jadyn is fine. She did not require stitches or even a trip to the ER. I watched her carefully the rest of the day, checking her frequently during her afternoon nap. The other good news is that I think I handled the situation pretty well. I was obviously shaken but I did not freak out. Seriously though, the metallic smell of all that blood burned in my nostrils all day.

The bad news is that now we know what we already had suspected. We need to find something to pad the outskirts of the slide of the bounce house. It is on my shopping list for Wally World today.

We have been so extremely fortunate that our trips to the ER with the kids have been very minimal thus far; a suspected broken bone that turned out to be a bad sprain (Jake when he was 11 months old), a bout of croup and an ear infection. Other than some goose eggs and scrapes, we have had very few incidents as scary as the one above and I just feel so incredibly blessed. So incredibly blessed. Sometimes, there just really are not enough words.

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