Some days just don't go as planned. Poor Grunty didn't plan on landing on his face when he started riding his scooter. We didn't plan on spending the afternoon in the urgent care office. But that's life, right?
I dropped off Jason and the boys at an indoor skate park with their scooters. They were excited to spend a couple of hours riding while I did some Christmas shopping. I hadn't gone four blocks down the road when Jason called and told me to come back--Grant had an accident. When I got there, Grant had an ice pack on his mouth and was talking jibberish. "What just happened? What's going on? I can't even tell if this is real. This just feels like a dream!" We sat there for awhile to get the bleeding to stop and to get him settled down. The inside of his lip was split open pretty badly in two places--I thought stitches were warranted. We decided to take him to the doctor to see about his lip and to check for a head injury.
Jason said Grant has just started to ride and wasn't even doing anything crazy when he lost his balance and slammed face forward over his scooter and onto his head and face. It happened so fast Grant wasn't able to get his hands out in front of him to catch his fall. He landed square on his face. It knocked him out and Jason had to roll him over and out of the growing pool of blood.
We got him to the doctor's office where he puked all over the foyer floor (was I selfish for feeling grateful he didn't puke in the car?). He had swallowed a TON of blood and it showed in the mess that was now covering the beautiful tile floor. After a thorough exam, the doc told us he was one very lucky kid and that his helmet had definitely done its job. Had he not been wearing it, he would have been in very bad shape. Fortunately, a minor concussion, a bit of confusion, a really bad headache, and a split lip were the only damages incurred. No broken nose, no knocked out teeth, no major head injury. She gave us the option for stitches in his lip, since scarring wasn't an issue and it would likely heal quickly. Grant quickly vetoed the stitches.
Once we got home, the puking continued consistently until he went to sleep that night. That worried me a bit, being unfamiliar with head injuries and wondering what was normal and what to be worried about. But, in the days following he has healed quickly and is back to being Grunty--with a fat lip and a black eye.
*Sidenote about helmets: The doc told us to throw out Grant's helmet and make sure to get him a new one since the trauma of this accident will have ruined his helmet. I scoffed at the suggestion (in my mind) thinking she was being overly cautious. When we got home, we checked out his helmet more closely, and, sure enough. There were two cracks in his helmet from the force of the blow. Crazy! And now I'm a complete advocate of helmet use AND helmet replacement after an accident. It saves lives, man!
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