Accident & Nova Scotia Highlights

Weeks 39, 40, & 41

How do you sum up 3 weeks?  I'm not sure, but I hope to do it quickly.

3 weeks ago, I was killing myself trying to get ready to go to Nova Scotia, so there is not much to report - except for the scariest day of my life.  Ty was sleepy and ready for a nap, but Reeses decided that she had to go outside right at that moment and was very insistent.  I let her out but she was messing around outside and wouldn't come back in right away.  I decided that I had to go out to find her.  I was carrying Tyson, who was sucking on his binky and getting sleepy.  I found Reeses between our garden and a flowerbed.  Next thing I knew, Ty and I were airborne.  I had tripped over a tomato planter that was laying on the ground.  Ty landed first on his head/neck and I landed on top of him.  It was instantaneous.  There was no time to react.  Tyson cried right away to my relief, but he was in shock.  I was really worried about his neck, so I wasn't sure if I should move him or not - but I did and laid him across my lap.  And that is when he closed his eyes and went to sleep.  Did he go to sleep or did he pass out?  I'm still not sure.  It was right before his nap and he was sleepy.  Then from crying and the shock of the accident did it make him go right to sleep?  Or was it the head injury that caused him to black out?  So in that moment when he closed his eyes, it was the worst moment of my life.  I blew in his face, yelled his name and he did open his eyes again after about 5 seconds.  But he was dazed.  I carried him into the house, laid him on the floor, and just looked at him.  He was just staring back at me, but not really moving or doing anything.  I didn't know if he was tired or injured or in shock.  All my experience as an ER nurse went out the window.  You totally stop thinking like a professional and you are a mother only.  At the same time, because of my experience I know too much and all I could think was that Ty had a spinal cord injury or a brain bleed.  I wasn't sure if I should call 911 for an ambulance to immobilize Ty in case of a spinal cord injury or if I should just go to the ER.  In that moment I needed someone to tell me what to do.  I called Heath but I couldn't get him (shocker) but I had the operator at Vutek page him.  He called back within a couple of minutes and by that time, Ty had started to smile at me and was moving his arms and legs.  Heath headed home right away and we decided to go to the ER, but then we called the pediatrician first.  They said that as long as he had cried right away, his eyes looked OK, he was moving all extremities, and hadn't vomited, then he did not need to go to the ER.  They said he was probably fine, but we could bring him in for their next appointment in 2 hours.  I asked if I could let him sleep because I was worried about a concussion, but they said I could if I checked on him frequently.  So I held him in my arms and he slept for an hour and 10 minutes.  That was the longest hour and 10 minutes of my life.  But when he woke up, he was the same ol' regular Ty.  He was grinning and giggling and crawling all over the place like nothing had happened.  We didn't think we had to bring him in to the doctors and they agreed.  They told us to check on him every 2 hours to make sure we could wake him up and if anything changed (vomiting, acting differently) then we would need to call them.  But as you can guess, he was completely fine.  It is only by the grace of God that Tyson was OK.  That could have been the worst day of my life.  God is so good and it has been 3 weeks since the accident and I still think about it everyday.

If anything would have happened to him...

Our trip to Nova Scotia went fairly well.  We left at 4:45 AM and eased Ty into his car seat without him waking up.  He slept until about 8AM, which was great.  But then the fussing started.  The fussing got so bad that we had to move things around so one of us could sit in the back with him.  Then he was OK.  It took us about 15 hours, which is about 2-3 hours longer than normal, but it was doable.

Ty slept great up there the whole time and has been sleeping worse when we got home!  What in the world?  We had a great time, but it poured all but one day we were there.  We were supposed to be there for 2 full weeks, but we left after 10 days because it would NOT stop raining.  Other people left early too, it wasn't just us!  For the first time in 6 years, we had everyone together up there.  That almost didn't happen because Shannon went into pre-term labor and was admitted overnight the day before we left.  She and the baby are fine, but she is on bed rest and is on medication twice a day to keep the contractions to a minimum and not so regular.  Her OB gave her permission to come to Nova Scotia, which was a big answer to prayer - so they came!

Thank goodness they were able to come!

The 8 great-grandkids all together!

I could write pages about Nova Scotia, but I will spare you all...  Let me just mention the highlights involving Ty!  First of all, Ty started furniture walking!  He really is getting around like crazy!  He moves right down the couches without any problem and even will transfer to another piece of furniture - if it isn't too far away!  Another thing that happened was that Ty started with some separation anxiety.  He absolutely lost his mind and sobbed his eyes out on a few different occasions when either Heath or I left the room.  Poor baby!  And he would just put his arms up and hugged us tight when we ran back to him.  The only decent day we had was on the second day.  We were going down to the lake for a quick swim and Heath talked me out of putting sunblock on Ty (he was having an eczema flare and the sunblock irritates him worse).  Heath & Ty ended up staying longer than I did (I had to cook with Leigh)... anyways, when the boys came up from the lake... Ty had his first sunburn!  It wasn't super bad, but it did end up peeling.  I felt so bad, but he didn't even notice!  The other highlight was not a good thing.  I tried to feed Ty some "real food" - a casserole with potatoes and Fri-chik mashed well, but he vomited twice.  I finally figured out that if he gets any real texture (anything that isn't pureed), it makes him gag and he vomits.  I read that it is one of the most common feeding problems, but I'm not sure how long it will take for him to outgrow that.  He has vomited about every other day when I try to do any texture at all!  Frustrating!  I just hope he isn't 3 years old and still on pureed foods!

Furniture walking, or leg walking at this point

He never wants to be separated from his Daddy!

First sunburn )=

I think those are the highlights as far as Ty goes... we'll be back to our regular weekly entries next week!  Have a great one!