Not Our Year

Jason strained his shoulder and sprained his wrist and now Victoria has sprained her neck. What the heck? It's not our year, I guess. Those of you wondering how she's doing, or what exactly happened, here's the low-down.

I got a call at 3 pm on Thursday from the school saying that Victoria had hurt her head and neck at recess because someone fell on her from the monkey bars. The secretary/nurse said, "We are icing it, but I am supposed to call when it has to do with the head." I'd heard that many times before. Victoria often bumps her head at school and I get a call, but usually she's okay. One time I did call the dr., but it turned out fine. (I'm learning she must be like me and have a magnet in her head for objects, or the ground, to hit it.)

I wanted to speak with Victoria since there was only 20 minutes of school left and I wasn't in a position to pick her up right then. She said she thought she had blacked out and she felt a little dizzy. She didn't want to go to piano that day. Since the secretary didn't make it sound too serious to me and since Victoria sometimes tries to get out of dance using her "drama" tactics, the fact she mentioned not going to piano right after school made me think she just wanted to get out of it. But, I made the phone calls I needed to, to switch around car-pools, and she came home right after school instead of going to piano. She looked pretty normal and wasn't moaning and groaning (which may have indicated that she really was hurt since she wasn't all yells and complains). I did look at her eyes, but they didn't seem to be dilated. When I asked her if she thought we should go to the dr. she kind of smiled and said, "Yyyeahhh."

I had called Jason already to tell him to come home earlier and told Victoria we would wait it out until after Austin's soccer to see how she's doing. I took her to our baby sitter's house where she watched TV while I did the soccer run and picked up Karissa and Ana from piano for my part in the car-pool. Ana lives where the babysitter does, so when I dropped her off, I picked Victoria up. She said her neck still hurt, so Jason and I decided I should call the dr. After asking if her arms were tingly or numb and she answered yes and knowing she had felt dizzy and had a headache, the dr. told me to take her right to the ER. Luckily, Jason was home by 6, so he took her a little after he got home. Even right before they left, Jason and I both thought she might have been exaggerating her symptoms, because she seemed almost normal, a little subdued, but very excited to go to the ER. I warned her she might wait a very long time and that it would cost a lot of money. They also said she couldn't eat anything. She still felt she should go.

When they got there, the admittance desk thought it was serious enough for her to go right in, so she cut in front of everyone and went right over to see the dr. He performed his tests on her, but I don't know exactly what, since I wasn't there. There was no x-ray, he just felt around and said it was sprained and that she probably had a concussion at the time of the accident. Jason said he got real jumpy when Victoria tried to sit up by herself. He gave her a neck brace and told her not to go to recess. They got home before bedtime.

The next day she felt nauseated, so I kept her home. When I called to make an appointment to see our dr. on Monday, they said to take her back to the ER of she threw-up or had more tingling in her arms. Today, at her appointment, the dr. confirmed the fact that she had had a concussion and told us if her head hurt, or she was queasy, or had tingling arms, to tone down the activity. Only her neck is sore now, no other symptoms. She said it could be a few weeks for her neck to feel normal again.

I've learned a few things from this.
1. Victoria is more of a drama queen when it's not as serious.
2. She has my head magnet (as I mentioned earlier) and probably my high pain tolerance when it really counts.
3. It is helpful to see the accident happen to know how serious it really is. A few weeks ago I watched her totally smash her knee into the garden plot and I could see she was in pain from the way she first reacted. Also, her knee had a very dark bruise all over and was bleeding. If I had seen the boy fall off the monkey bars on her, I would have been able to tell how bad it was.

Luckily, we did take her in a few hours after the accident, but it's interesting to see everyone else's reaction to it. Most people realize how serious it was right away and are very worried for her, except the school secretary. (In her defense, she didn't see the accident either and Victoria was just so calm that day, it didn't seem like that big of a deal).

This Saturday is Victoria's dance recital. She didn't dance in the dress rehearsal on Saturday, nor will she dance in the run-through tomorrow. The dr. said she could dance on Saturday if she feels up to it. We'll see.

Here she is at the dress rehearsal, not dressed. 

At least she could balance, even if she couldn't dance.

We're supposed to video tape at the rehearsals, not the actual performance, so I may not have a recording of her dancing with her friends, but maybe she'll do a solo when she's feeling better.