Boys Will Be Boys

Well it’s been a while since Merrick’s accident.  I’ve thought about putting it all down for a blog post many times but every time I start to type things up or think about writing it, it seems to make it real again.  It’s almost like I’m reliving the memory, the guilt hits me again and I just want to run away from it.  I am very thankful for the great outcome we had and feel more than blessed.  I know how lucky we are but there’s just such a guilty feeling about the whole thing.  At times I feel almost ashamed to tell people because I feel like we should have been able to prevent it.  I know accidents happen, I get that…but why Merrick?

Long story as short as I can make it but I’m sure I’ll ramble.  Merrick was home with Patrick while I was at swim lessons with Braysen in a nearby town.  He went to get the bath ready in the upstairs hall bath.  Our upstairs is very open so you can see everything and our playroom is up there.  Since taking this picture we had gotten a play kitchen and put against he railing by the TV.  Merrick was happily playing with the play kitchen Patrick said and he heard giggling then a thud.  Merrick got up the kitchen and over the banister railing very quickly I guess.  Patrick rushed downstairs to find Merrick laying on his side and crying but moving fine.  He picked him up and called me but didn’t get me at first.  I noticed the text right after I put Braysen in the water for his swim class. When I called him, he was calm but you could tell he was also shook up when telling me Merrick had a fall.  I’m asking where he fell from and when I found it was the second story I told him to get to the ER right away.  The town we live in is a small one so it was best to get into he car and drive rather than wait for an ambulance from a neighboring town to get to him then transport.

Here’s the picture of the playroom area (kitchen he climbed up on is not in this picture).  The railing to the right of the TV on the little stand is what he went up and over…about 16 feet onto a Pergo wood floor.  This is also the view from where Patrick was ..next to the bathroom.   The rest of the story is linked after the picture.

I ran into the swimming pool, pulling Braysen out of his class soaking wet and ran outside with him to the car.  I told him that Merrick had an accident and we had to meet daddy at the hospital.  He fell asleep on the way there.  After the whole driving 30 minutes from the town we had swim lessons in, we finally arrived to the hospital where my in-laws, Patrick and Merrick were.  Patrick & Merrick were in a trauma room waiting to be seen.  They back boarded him right after I got there, failed to do so upon him getting there (Doc chewed out the nurse for that considering the nature of his fall).  Him being on that board was horrible because at that point I couldn’t hold him at all to comfort him.  Then they put in the IV to start drawing blood and give him some pain meds for us to get sent over for his CT scan.  The IV process was not pleasant!!  Every time someone would enter the room he would freak out because of all the poking, prodding, and messing with him.  He would wake up screaming every time that blood pressure cuff would start up on the vital checks.  I just couldn’t get him calmed down but finally they let me lay down next to him and I put my face up to his and stroked his cheek, held his hand.  That seemed to be the one thing I could do to help, I felt helpless in every other way.

The ER doc came back after the scan and said they needed to get us up by ambulance to OHSU/Doernbecher’s Hospital asap because he had a skull fracture and there was chance of swelling or hemorrhaging.  I got to ride up with them but it was full lights and sirens which was pretty scary for both Merrick and I.  (even after having my EMT certification previously, nothing would prepare me for being on the mom side of that trip).  Patrick went home to grab a small bag, get Braysen settled in with his parents and then met me in Portland.  When Merrick and I got to the ped. ER there was an insane amount of people in the room with him and people grabbing me away from his room.  It was completely nerve wracking to see that many people around him and the screams.  After a little while I got to go in and try to help calm him down for the rest of their assessment.  It was hard being calm myself, let alone calming him but I just kept stroking his forehead and getting as close to him as I could with my cheeks against his.

The pediatric neurosurgery team met with me briefly and went to see the CT scan images.  I was told he had a very large skull fracture (left temporal to right parietal) but it was not depressed, nor did the images show any internal bleeding / swelling of the brain.  THANK GOD!! They were trying to determine whether we’d be in ICU or not and they decided he was stable enough to not go to ICU!  Merrick did great all night.  The neuro team came by the next day to evaluate and told us that a guardian angel must have just put a pillow down to let him fall softly.  All the doctors were great and boy did we have teams of them come through.  OHSU is a teaching hospital and one of the best children’s hospitals around so we were in good hands!  Almost everyone that saw him told us how lucky he is and that coming through with this size of fracture and the distance of his fall with nothing else broken or going on was almost unheard of.  Someone above was looking out for us to say the least!

We were released the next afternoon and it’s been a rough journey since.  It’s hard to keep a toddler from being too active and to keep him from climbing.  The doc’s told us he’d have some pretty major headaches for up to 2 weeks.  We needed to keep just a good eye on him at all times for anything that stands out different so I had to let his Tylenol lapse a bit just to see how the pain was even.  It was also hard on Braysen who started acting out seeking attention.  I spent the night on Merrick’s floor for almost 2 weeks straight, scared and just trying to comfort him because he wasn’t sleeping well.  We actually converted his crib into a toddler bed the afternoon of his fall because he had started to climb out of his crib the night before.  I guess he decided climbing out of his crib was a small feat and went bigger.

I have horrible guilt still.  I didn’t have much of a chance to just cry about this.  I am paranoid and freaked out about the kids hurting themselves at times.  I swear I thought we had everything baby proofed and here this happens.  It’s just something I never thought would ever happen to us.  I know that’s such a cliché statement but I just can’t believe it.  I’m in shock still that this happened to us.  I feel incredibly blessed that Merrick is a hardheaded healthy boy from all of this.  I know that God works miracles and this is one of them for us.  I had amazing family, friends and neighbors come to our aid.  I felt unworthy though and guilty….like we didn’t deserve how nice they were being and how we should’ve prevented it.

After bringing him home from the hospital we had a horrible time getting him to sleep.  We switched from Tylenol to Motrin round the clock for a while and his sleep habits were sporadic at best.  I was in email contact with our pediatrician asking questions to see if it was all ok and hoping everything was normal.  He was extremely clingy and didn’t want to be put down.  It took us almost 6 weeks to get him to sleep through the night or at least only wake up once.  It was worse than newborn stages and for all those parents that complain about sleep, it could be worse.  I realize that now myself!  Getting no sleep from a child that is obviously in pain at times, trying to comfort them and then praying there is nothing else going on or wrong was hard…on all of us.

Around 9 weeks after his accident I took Merrick in for his check up at our pediatricians office.  I was able to do the follow-up with him instead of going to OHSU/Portland.  He did the full neurological assessment and gave us the green light.  We’ll be doing future follow-ups just to make sure we are still on track.

We talked a lot during that appointment about his sleeping habits, his developmental milestones and various other things that could have been affected.  What was really enlightening was the sleep habits talk.  He explained how head trauma patients have increased swelling at night as they slip deeper into REM sleep.  SO, the likely reason why Merrick was waking up every few hours was due to increased intracranial swelling, as he got deeper into sleep.  He would wake up screaming, as if in pain and sure enough, he was it seems.  What is scary to me is knowing he did have the swelling that didn’t necessarily show up right away.  It’s possible he could also have migraines for a few months but I think we are past that stage now..but who knows.  It’s not like Merrick is telling us if his head feels ok.

So, here we are moving on with our lives.  Trying to love, care and protect our children as best as we can.  I try to tell myself that accidents do happen and put some of that guilt behind.  Trying to not be so paranoid about every little fall or bonk on the head.  Merrick is our walking miracle but he is also the most accident prone kid.  I swear he is constantly getting a bump, bruise, black eye or something from who knows what.  I think he is going to keep us on our toes and you know, I couldn’t be more thankful for that..given when we went through.  At times, eh drives me completely batty.  (don’t all kids drive their kids batty though at some point)?)  He’s stubborn and hard headed but he’s healthy, happy, and I get to wake up to see his cute dimpled smile every morning!

Sorry this was so long.  It’s been a long time coming.  I started writing this shortly after his accident but never got to the full version of it.  It feels good to vent and with time hopefully some of the guilt will fade away.  There’s so many people that don’t know what happened to Bugz too, so this was my way of telling that journey..in my own time.