A few days ago when getting out of our car after preschool, Miss 3 looked at me and asked, “Can I sit on the car boot?”. I shook my head fiercely as I shuddered away the traumatic memories from the last time that same innocent request was made. I looked into Miss 3’s sparkling blue eyes, took a deep breath and said, “Remember what happened last time we sat on the boot…” She nodded. “We don’t want anyone to get hurt again, okay sweetie”, she nodded okay and we went inside our house. You see, many months ago when Miss 2 was then Miss 18 months we had returned home from dinner at my mother’s house.
It was a clear night and the stars were out. The girls had been winging during the car ride so I had successfully managed to distract them with star gazing. Getting out of the car both girls looked up at the stars in awe. Being heavily pregnant I dashed inside to go to the loo whilst my husband unloaded the car and watched our girls. Suddenly I heard a thump, then a slight cry, then silence. As our Miss 18 months is known to be accident prone at the best of times (seriously, she tumbles over on average at least 3 times a day, sometimes over her own two feet!) I thought nothing much of it. She must have tripped and grazed her knee, I”ll go to the loo then go help husband with the girls. But something turned in my gut and as I instinctively walked to the door I saw my husband carrying our Miss 18 months, quiet, motionless. I grabbed her from him, too scared to look, I could see blood on my husband’s shirt and her face was red and starting to swell. I checked her teeth as I always do after a fall, I couldn’t tell if there were any missing, blood was flowing from her mouth, nose and forehead.
“We have to get her to the hospital!”, I gasped. My husband reassured me everything would be okay, he was in disbelief himself. I held her out and looked at her, her left eye was swelling and she was quiet. “What happened?” I demanded as I grabbed a phone realising we needed help faster than we could get to help.
The wait for the ambulance was awful to say the least. I screamed, I cried, I wailed as my baby girl went in and out of consciousness. At some point husband took the phone as I was inconsolable and unable to be understood as my words turned to dribble between snorts of tears and screams demanding they “Hurry, hurry, pleeease hurry!”. The ambulance ride was horrifying for me, my baby being given oxygen, memories of her happy face smiling at me as I wondered if we would ever have our child back with us in the same capacity she was before the accident. I asked if she would be okay, if she would recover, if she would go back to normal. I was told only time would tell and they would do everything they could. We had left my husband and Miss 2 behind as I travelled with our injured baby in the ambulance. I was so relieved to see them both when we got to emergency a short time later.
There are only two times I have ever seen my husband cry; the first was years earlier when we visited my much loved and unwell Great Uncle in hospital not long before he passed, when he was a shell of the beautiful man he once was, the second time was this night in hospital when he saw our baby with a huge black eye swollen shut and a bloodied face. He felt so terrible about her being hurt that he refused to sit on a chair, feeling he was only worthy of slumping onto the cold hospital floor as doctors treated and monitored our baby.
Holding our Miss 18 months I was relieved when she started to talk, but chills of fear ran through my veins as she asked “Where’s Mummy? Where’s Mummy?” whilst looking at me as I cradled her in my arms. The next 24 hours was a blur. We were admitted overnight and I sat holding her in a chair, watching the rise and fall of each breath whilst feeling our unborn baby kicking away inside me, as doctors monitored her throughout the night. The following morning scans were taken revealing a fracture to her eye socket. We had been so very lucky there wasn’t more damage done. Again and again we were asked by different doctors what happened. Our girls had asked their Daddy (my husband) if they could look at the stars and he had placed our Miss 18 months on the boot to get a better look. We have a Toyota Camry, it has a flat boot and Miss 18 months sat easily on it. Then as he turned to pick up Miss 3 to sit her on the boot also, Miss 18 months lent forward and fell onto the asphalt pavement below. It happened in a split second, one that is painfully etched into our minds forever.
Miss 18 months required many follow up visits with ophthalmologists (eye specialist), and plastic surgeons (the true jocks of the surgical world reassuring me that no matter what it is, they can fix it) as she recovered from her injuries. The staff at the hospital recognised us each visit. Every appointment was like a hurdle in her recovery and as we received the green light time after time I breathed a sigh of relief realising what we could have lost but are so blessed to still hold onto. I can tell you I have never been so scared in my life, not even when I lay on our kitchen floor in a pool of blood during my PPH after our first baby was born. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you that when you become a mother, your life has less value than that of your children. Yes you want to live, you want to live for your children. But whilst you can handle seeing yourself suffering, its impossible to watch as your own child is hurting.
Months later you could not tell that our now Miss 2 had ever sustained such a traumatic injury as she happily plays, and stumbles about as she propels her body forwards faster than her little legs can carry her. The only time she cried during the whole ordeal was when we returned home from hospital and she saw her reflection, her eye bright purple. She refused to have photos taken for some time insisting “No cheese!” when the camera was presented (not that I wanted photos of her looking like that, it just so happened to be the Easter long weekend and we tried our best to normalise the event by continuing with our Egg Hunt and family lunch as usual complete with photos which even now make me cry to see) but as the bruising turned every colour imaginable and slowly began to fade she started to smile more and more. She is an incredibly tough kid, only a few weeks before the accident she sat on my lap at the doctor’s getting her injections. She didn’t even flinch as she stared down our GP as if saying, ‘What’s that, a feather? What else have you got?’
Thinking back on all of this I realise that this incredibly brave kid just has an incredible trust in everything. When she was younger and I would carry her on my hip, she would often dangle her limbs about heavily as she grew tired, having complete faith I would hold her tight and not let her fall as I always did and still do. She is the type of kid that was on the move early on, and would go about removing the entire contents of every cupboard she could find. Then as I turn my back to clean the mess, within minutes she would have made a furniture tower and be standing atop looking proud of her climbing skills as though she had conquered a new land whilst I would run towards her, arms out yelling “Nooo, stop, wait! Don’t moooooove!”She trusts there won’t be anything on the ground that could trip her up yet seems to fall over anything that gets in her way. She has faith in her own feet and balance as she runs, arms swaying side to side, and still falls over herself. She trips about toys, chairs, the carpets, nothing. There isn’t a day when she doesn’t somehow injure herself. I wonder what I will need to tell the preschool when she starts attending as she always has bruises of some sort somewhere on her body. As I bathe and change her I ask , “Where is this bruise from?” or comment, “Oh, this one is from when you fell onto the dog’s bowl/dolly/block/insert random object from our house here”.
As I watch her walk down the stairs without holding on, or ride her tricycle, or being pushed in her toy pram by Miss 3 or run at the park I shudder as I brace for a fall, arms out ready to catch her. It was only last week whilst eating lunch at a cafe I was telling a friend how clumsy she is and as I am saying this Miss 2 ever so slowly falls from her chair. My friend looks astonished, “It happened so slowly!”. Yes our Miss 2 is accident prone alright, I just hope that she never has an accident as serious as her fall from the car ever again. I don’t think there will ever be a time when we can joke about it either. I tried once, whilst showering with Miss 2 who slipped and fell, my husband watching. I glared back as I helped her up and cuddled her, “At least I didn’t let her drop from the car…too soon?” He shook his head, looking disappointed because whilst it was not his fault, whilst it was no ones fault, he feels responsible and no matter what I say he will never forgive himself.
Watching our Miss 2 in the pool today having her swimming lesson with my husband, both smiling and giggling I know we are incredibly lucky. She tripped when she got out of the pool sure, but she is her usual bubbly self and her happy smiles make the daily panic attacks I endure as I supervise her closely worthwhile. And we now officially have private health insurance, so phew! Perhaps I don’t need shares in cotton wool after all.
Do you have an accident prone child? How do you prevent them from injuring themselves?
I was on the edge of my chair reading through this blog not knowing how everything was going to turn out – fearing the worst but hoping for the best. I trust everyone is healthy at this time.