Thankfully

I have just got half way through a post about the local library and memories and then realised that in fact I have something to post about that is more important.
I have just been reading Rocking Chair Reflections and she is doing a month of thanksgivings. Last month she did a month of memories.
I really should have done a month of giving thanks seeing as it is now November (holy crap where did the year go?)  but had already said I would do memories, although I think I might mix it over the month.

Anyway, I digress, another Blog I follow, Deb's Doodlings is someone I have met through work, well we met through blogging but then worked out we both work at the hospital so we met a few times, usually in the staff canteen when both buying lunch!
However, when I checked her blog yesterday it was to discover that she had received the call that every parent dreads "Hi, we are calling to let you know there has been an accident, your daughter has been injured!"
For the last week she has been at the hospital with her 11 yr old who is in a bad way, head injury, facial fractures, broken leg and pelvis, more bruises than you want.

Deb is only just resurfacing after having the week from hell, although she still has many weeks to go. Her daughter is non weight bearing for at least the next 6-8 weeks, when she finally manages to sit up for longer than 20 secs.

So suddenly I am thankful that she is going to be ok, I am thankful to everyone that helped them with getting her to hospital, the ambulance, fire brigade and the air ambulance.
I am thankful for my family and that we are all safe tonight in our house together.

Crutches

Ben has had the joy of learning how to use crutches this week.

Luckily for him, he is at Grandma's house at present, so not many steps to climb. We on the other hand have a flight of 18 to get upstairs, so guess we will be carrying him to bed each night.

Apparently he has been doing well on his crutches and his learning to keep his balance better.
After 4 weeks of this he will probably be very fast on them.

Just Perfect! The Joys of Parenting

This time last week I was ranting and raging about having time off work due to a sick child. He by the way is now fine and we really don't think he was ever that contagious, but we will not argue that point now!
So yesterday life finally got back to normal.
Everyone went to school and I got to go back to work.

However that only lasted until 5pm last night.
Ben jumped down of the stage at after school care last night (like he has everyday practically for the last 2 years) and then complained his foot hurt. Apparently he walked across the hall and then mentioned it hurt.
He could walk on it and move his toes and said it didn't hurt too much when touched. We decided that a pulled muscle was probably the best and left it at that. He had shoes on at the time so we felt his foot was supported so expected nothing sinister at all.
This morning his foot was swollen and sore, so Steve took a couple of hours off and took him for an x-ray at 9am.
I on the other hand called in the cavalry (aka Grandma)
They diagnosed a sprain and sent us home telling us to keep him home for the rest of the week. So Grandma came and did a snatch and grab and whisked him home to her house till Saturday.

Don't you just love Grandma's?

Unfortunately I wish it was all just that simple.
Turns out someone else reviewed his x-ray later in the day and they called us at 5pm to say he needed to be seen again due to actually having a broken foot.
Slight problem, he is now 1hr drive away.
So Grandma took him to local clinic and they called our clinic who advised of the diagnosis.

Now we have a back slab, non weight bearing with crutches for 3 days, then a visit to fracture clinic and then 6 weeks in a cast.
So soccer season, which he is loving has just disappeared along with Judo.
Not sure if he realises this but then seeing as he is not at home at present, still at Grandma's, then we will discuss this with him when he returns!

So here we are, 10pm and I still am not exactly sure what is happening. I never saw the doctor, we haven't really spoken to anyone proper about the phone call because no one has spoken to us yet! Grandma knows more than we do due to being told directly at her clinic what the Hamilton clinic told them, but even then because she is not in town, then they don't know who, when or where.

My day off tomorrow is obviously going to be spent getting to grips with everything and when we have to be places and what for.

The joys of Parenting.

Boys Will Be Boys

I have 2 boys and I am going to let them be boys.

Every mother wants to wrap their child up in cotton wool until they are bigger to keep them safe, but you have to let them grow and experience.

If my 2 want to roll in the mud, then I will help to bath them afterwards.
If they want to try a jump on a small ramp with their bikes, then I will clean the cuts and grazes when they slide off.
And if they want to do something that ends up with them breaking something, I maybe won’t stand around and watch them partake of it, but I will escort them to the emergency room to get them patched up / stitched up or plastered up afterwards.

Boys will be boys and there is no stopping them, but who would want to?
Doing all this boy stuff is good for their coordination, balance, timing, trust, mental agility, bone and muscle growth and general overall knowing what their bodies can do.

Or at least that is what I am telling myself 16 hours after Alex (5 ½) has fallen 2 ½ m out of a tree at the caravan park!
Yes that is right, I watched him up a tree and then I saw him slip and fall like a rag doll to the grass below! Narrowly missing a parked boat nearby by ½ m!

How is he ............fine.
A little shaken and shocked, maybe a little bruised, a nice little fat lip inside where his teeth went but other than that fine.
Luckily, as mentioned, he fell like a rag doll and so landed on his whole body and not just one area so the whole impact was distributed.

We did the usual stuff......check for bone breakage, movement, bleeding, time and place knowledge, eye movement, speech etc
We kept the neurological checks going all evening and he is still ok.
An hour afterwards he was fine and running around, sort of like nothing had happened but still a little quiet. Occasionally (every 2 hours or so) he would lay down and say his tummy and head hurt, but palpation of his tummy came up negative and his time and place were accurate and his eye movement was fine.
He would then suddenly perk up again and go out and play, running around riding his bike etc

Although it hadn’t stopped us suspecting a mild concussion and therefore muggings here just spent the night sharing a bed with him so I could wake him every hour or so to check he woke up, that he didn’t have any pain or wasn’t feeling sick. As advised to us by the on call medical person on the phone, because as I mentioned, we are at the caravan and the local medical centre is for a very small township and therefore is not manned night and day, come 8pm if you want a doctor then you either dial 111 for the ambulance or you drive the 45 mins to Tauranga Hospital.

Also, even though we are both nurses ourselves, it is always reassuring to get someone else to say what they think and realise that you were doing the right things and were thinking the same things.

But of course he is fine.
So of course boys will be boys and I am not going to stop my 2 being boys.
Although just as long as they let me get through the next 2 weeks of our holiday with no more heart stopping moments then I will be ready for the next time they need me!

Identification Needed

On Sunday it was reported that a ladies body had been found in a local park in Hamilton.
She was discovered by 2 teenage boys as they walked through the the park.
It was decided that the lady had unfortunately been unable to negotiate a bend on a steep path whilst riding her bike and had hit a tree and fallen into the knee high water, were sadly she drowned.

I did not know the lady, but what struck me as the sadest part was that it took her family 4 days to realise she was missing.
Because she was out cycling, although she wasn't wearing a cycle helmet, she had no identification on her at all.
It turns out that she was a 40 yr old lady who lived alone. She had seen her family the night before and because of that they didn't notice her not being around until about Wednesday.

Now I can see this happening very easily, my mum lives on her own, (an hour away) now ok my brother lives 500m down the street from her, but I can happily go 4-5 days without talking to her on the phone. If my brother didn't live so close then I wouldn't know if anything was wrong until I tried to contact her and couldn't. So it is not unusual.

But what I am trying to stress here is the importance of ID when out running or cycling on your own.
This lady had keys with her and nothing else.
It would have been so great if she had a card on her that said her name and emergency contact details.

So if you have a friend or loved one who loves going for long runs or bike rides on their own, then encourage them to make a card that is about credit card size, that they can slip in a back pocket of shorts etc that gives their name and emergency contact.
That way, if anything ever happened to them whilst out, someone would be notified immediately and not have the whole town wondering who this poor person is and who do they belong too.

Accidents

Ben has managed to have another accident with something sharp and his fingers!
This time he was at school, and whilst using safety scissors has manged to attempt to cut off a finger on the other hand!
Clean and simple cuts, well one is a little deep, he has managed to place a cut either side of the finger at the base.
No problem with this but try telling a 5 yr old not to move the finger whilst it is healing!?
Exactly...!
So he now has a splint on the finger, it actually looks a little over the top for what he has managed to do, but hopefully it means it will heal great. Sadly he is not a fast healer, things seem to take ages, he seems to have fragile skin.

He is coping very well with a splint on his hand and one finger pointing upwards. Sadly it wasn't until my cousin visited yesterday that we noticed that he is actually showing us 'the birdie' or 'the finger' everytime he puts his hand up to show anyone.
Quite amuzing actually. Good job he is only 5 and has no idea!

I.C.E

This concept is not anything new to me, infact I have known about it for many years.

I am sure that most of you know about it as well, but just in case, for the few that haven't heard about it, I thought I would share.

I C E – In Case Of Emergency

We all carry our mobile phones with names and numbers stored in its memory. If we were to be involved in an accident or were taken ill, the people attending us would have our mobile phone but wouldn’t know who to call. Yes, there are hundreds of numbers stored but which one is the contact person in case of an emergency? Hence this ‘ICE’ (In Case of Emergency) Campaign.

The concept of ‘ICE’ is catching on quickly. It is a method of contact during emergency situations. As mobile phones are carried by the majority of the population, all you need to do is store the number of a contact person or persons who should be contacted during emergency under the name ‘ICE’ (In Case of Emergency). The idea was thought up by a paramedic who found that when he went to the scenes of accidents there were always mobile phones with patients but they didn’t know which number to call.

He therefore thought that it would be a good idea if there was a nationally recognised name for this purpose.

In an emergency situation, Emergency Service personnel and hospital staff would be able to quickly contact the right person by simply dialling the number you have stored as ‘ICE’.
For more than one contact name, simply enter ICE1, ICE2, ICE3 etc

______________________________________

I have about 4 ICE's in my phone, my husband's mobile and home number and my best friend.

That way if anything ever happened to me, they should be able to get in touch with someone!

Blood

We had our first taste of blood with little boys this weekend.
First Ben came over, crying in his panic state to show me he had cut his finger. With the noise you would have expected to find his finger hanging off! But no, just a little surface cut, but of course we had to have a bandaid.

Then Alex got hit in the face with a swing ball racket, didn't actually see this one happen, just saw him running to me with blood coming from his nose. All dealt with quite calmly, and that one got fixed with a cold cloth and an ice block from the store!

Then just as we were leaving, Ben, Alex and their friend Michael were playing jungle in the bush and Ben caught his toe on something. Again you would have thought the world had ended the way Ben went on! But no, just a small scrap by his toe, lots of blood and one little boy who panics at anything and everything!

So a fun time, Alex even managed to get blood drips on the deck, so now the caravan has been stained with the first childhood memories of fun in the sun.