Friday night, as I'm putting the boys to bed, Jackson kept saying, "Does your say hurt?" Say = mouth, cuz you say stuff with it. He's so darn literal. I looked at him and he seemed fine. At 1 am, I heard "the cough," by 1:30 we were bundled up in the car heading to The Chateau.
We check in, they take us back and begin the questions. It's frustrating sometimes because med students are looking for something a little more exciting than croup. I know it's the ER, I know they have to cover their bases, but I've been through with Jackson more times than I can count. I told her it's croup, he needs a racemic epi and decadron. This particular student was convinced Jackson was choking on something. She even brought in another person to hold him down, so she could dig around with a tongue depressor. When a foreign body was not found, she left without a word and a nurse appeared with a racemic epi and decadron, aka the "Mr. Steamy."
The nurse was wonderful and this was the first Mr. Steamy that didn't cause Jackson to cry, scream, thrash or burst blood vessels in his face. He calmly sat and played with the iPad and let Mr. Steamy do his job. I think Jackson finally, finally understands that the breathing treatment makes him feel better.
Here comes the twist: ready? We are now in the 3 hour holding pattern that comes after a breathing treatment, waiting for the rebound that leads to hospital admission. As we're sitting there, I'm watching a show about JFK and Jackson's playing with the iPad, I'm absentmindedly petting J's head. I feel a huge squishy spot. He doesn't react, so I didn't think it was hurting him. I continue poking around and realize the spot is pretty big and I remembered he had fallen a week before. I slowly start to panic, I'm overtired and my head is going to the worst case scenarios.
The doctor comes in to check on J's breathing and I ask him to feel the squishy spot. He says, "Well, that's not right, I think I feel a ridge, we have to scan him." I ask what that means and he explained that a ridge could be a skull fracture and the squishy spot is probably a hematoma, but if any of the membrane is coming through the ridge, he will need surgery. I'm now in official panic mode. Go in with croup, come out with a skull fracture. (Where's that med student now, huh?)
We attempt to do the CT scan which sends an overtired, hopped up on meds 9 year-old into uber panic mode. ER doc tells us since the rebound hasn't happened, we can go home and call ped on Monday to get an order to do the CT scan under sedation. We couldn't sedate him at this time because of the breathing issue. So, now I get to worry two whole days before I can call the ped.
I call the ped's office, she's off this week, so they give me to another ped. They send an order over to the hospital, but they can't get us in until Wed, two more days of worry for me. The doctor calls me Monday and basically talks me down. She was fantastic. She didn't think there was a fracture because Jackson wasn't having any odd symptoms. She also didn't want to sedate him because she was worried about any adverse reactions he may have.
Wednesday morning, we get to radiology and walk into the room where the CT scan is and Jackson starts to panic. They ended up having to put a collar on him, velcro him to the table and velcro his head down. Looks like fun, huh? I haven't heard him scream like this before.
The ped called a few hours later and said that she didn't see any evidence of a fracture. Whew!! There is still a large hematoma between his scalp and skull that will take several weeks to go away. She also said that when the blood starts to clot in there, it will get hard and that if we feel lumps, that's normal.
Alls well that ends well, right? Like I said, "Ain't no party like a Jackson party, cuz a Jackson party don't stop!"
Object du Jour: Lego sunroofs and the iPad.
P.S. Then this happened. Who needs turkey when you have a big ball of green playdoh?
