Mom in a Children's Paradise: Allie, ER trip and lessons learned...

So if you didn't already know we had a not so fun night last night with my middle Daughter. We ended up learning a few lessons and here they are.

1. Dancing in the kitchen to Luke Bryan can be hazardous to your health.

2. Madison hospital ER has a terrible turn over rate.

3. Always listen to your gut aka Mommy intuition.

4. Allie has a hard head and never ceases to amaze me.

While dancing around to Luke Bryan in the kitchen last night the girls started showing us their mad dance moves. Well come Allies turn she some how manages to fall and catch herself with the right side of her face on the ceramic tile causing instantaneous swelling and bleeding.

This is where I impress myself and turn into super mom and calmly pick her up and set her on the counter to assess the damage while praying, dear God please let all her teeth be attached and nothing be broken. We are not going to even mention what daddy was doing at this point. CIMH lets just say daddy and face traumas do not mix. Well after I got the initial bleeding to stop and there was a lot of blood in the mouth area I was able to determine she didn’t damage her teeth. Phew, Thank god. But the right side of her nose was really swollen along with her lip. Both of which were pouring blood. So I was pretty concerned she had broken her nose or cracked a face bone. So Justin and I decided it was time for Allie’s 3^rd ER trip in her life.

Well we have two ER’s in our area one a children’s ER a little further drive and then the regular ER they opened up last summer here in Madison. Well my gut said Children’s ER but my dumb brain said well we went to the Madison ER last summer for Allies broken leg and everything went smooth so it should be fine. Well I got stuck on Sullivan cause of a train for 10 mins… should have taken that as a sign to turn around and go to the other ER but my stubborn butt waited and continued on to the Madison ER while getting stuck at EVERY, no joke, EVERY light.

So I finally get to the ER and OMG it is packed… thinking great here comes a 2-hour wait. Well it only took 10 mins to see triage, so I thought this is promising. Ha wrong… well an hour into my wait my phone is almost dead so luckily my wonderful sister in-law came to my rescue with her phone charger. By the time she got there cause she was out to dinner (sorry about that) I was two hours into my wait. Well Tati stayed and visited with me and helped hold Allie who at this point is passed out. So thank you to her for helping me out. And for brining me m&ms J

So after 4 hours and 15 mins from arrival we finally get in a room. At this point it is midnight and I am exhausted and it is passed my bedtime. Then they proceed to take 2 more hours to get the doctor into us. At this point we are 6 hours in and I am exhausted and of course had to pee and I have been crying cause I am frustrated. Well I ask the nurse to please sit with Allie since she is asleep so I can go to the restroom and of course she can tell I have been crying and ask if I am ok and I melt down. She offers me water and I take it. Next thing I know she comes back with a free fleece blanket with the hospital logo on it. Guess she felt bad for me. So anyways the Doc finally comes in and he looks at her teeth, gums and lips and no need for stitches and everything looks good just will have to heal on it’s own but orders a CT Scan just to check facial bones and for possible brain swelling. Takes another hour for radiology to come get us. Finally we get the CT Scan, of course Allie wakes up a freaks out because the machine sounds like a jet air plane. The tech instructs her she has to be really still or the picture won’t come out right Well the first time the machine moved and startled her so she moved. So I promise her a brownie if she holds really still and that did the trick and she held perfectly still the second time.

Well now we are back to waiting on results so another hour and 20 mins, only after I have asked can we please go home and get called with results does the Doctor magically appear with our results. So he proceeds to tell me that nothing is broke, she just has a really busted lip and facial swelling. Based off the swelling even the triage nurse who was also our discharge nurse was shocked nothing was broke. But 8 1/2 hours later Allie got a clean bill of health, was told she had a hard head and praised for doing better then a lot of adults during her ct scan.

So we finally get home and what is the first thing she said to Justin, mommy said I can have a brownie can I have my brownie lol. So we let her have her brownie and crawled into bed at 5 only to have to wake up at 6:00 to get Renae off to school… So I am tired today but at least Allie is ok. She continues to amaze me with how resilient she is with this kind of stuff… she just gets up and keeps going.. Well thank you for reading my long story and for all the prayers. Just glad it’s over and she is ok… Allie is always busting her nose or hitting her face, just last week she got kicked in the face at preschool so I worry about her, Allies face is a magnet for Trauma I guess… huf… well happy Thursday, here are a few pics, she Is always still smiling and beautiful even with her busted lip J