There are times in life when terrible and crazy things happen and you never know how you will react or handle the situation. A couple of weeks ago my family and I experienced one of those moments when Whitney fell and split her head wide open.
I'm sharing about that scary accident and how my family handled it.
We had traveled to Boerne, TX (2.5 hours from Austin) to celebrate Labor Day weekend with my mom, nieces, nephew, sister, brother and their spouses at Tapatio Springs Resort. We were super excited to get away and spend quality time with family. Saturday was off to a great start and we spent a couple of hours in the pool. Then it happened. Family was everywhere and lots of eyes were on my children, but you can't protect them from everything. Whitney was running back to us and fell, and as she went down she hit her head on a thin metal pool lounge chair. I saw her fall from afar. I saw my mom immediately pick her up and that's when I saw the blood. It was everywhere. We quickly grabbed a towel and wrapped her up in it. Let me also mention that a minute before Whitney fell we discovered Walt had crapped his pants and wasn't wearing a swim diaper (whoops). It was coming down his leg...sorry for the visual. So I was holding his hand in one arm, and trying not to FREAK OUT!
My sister immediately swooped in and took a look at Whitney's head and said "Yeah, it's bad." She told us Whitney needed stitches and we needed to take her to the emergency room immediately. Thank the lord for her because she was calm and collected. She has 5 girls and worked in many emergency situations as a respiratory therapist. My amazing family took care of Walt and Turner as Alex and I took of for the hospital.
Can I just say that I thought we ALL might die on the way to the hospital. Alex was FREAKING OUT, and by freaking out I mean he was completely silent and driving like a lunatic. I was sitting in the very back of the van holding Whitney in my arms. She fell asleep about 3 minutes in to our drive. I kept telling Alex to slow down, she's asleep, calm down, she's going to be OK. He responded with nothing. He kept driving like a mad man. Thankfully the hospital was only 10 minutes away and when we arrived they immediately took us to the back and assessed her head.
The doctor said he would need to put her under to give her a deep set of sutures aka stitches and then he would have to do another layer on top. When the doc was going over the sedative (ketamine) and its risks and side effects I kept thinking about my Dad. How something that might seem so minor could possibly end in complete horror. About an hour later they put and IV in her arm, which I stepped out for because I didn't want to hear her screaming. Then they put her under using ketamine which was very scary to watch her go limp but still have her eyes open. While he was stitching her up I broke down in to tears a few times as I thought of my Dad. I held on to her little feet and kissed them.
Thankfully she was back to herself the next day, but the doctor advised not to let her swim the next 24 hours. Since we were at a resort that's main focus was the pool and didn't have any other activities for young kids, it was a bit of a challenge. My mom and I ended up going in to downtown Boerne for a few hours to kill some time, and then in the afternoon Whitney and I hung out on the side of the pool.
We really hope she doesn't have a bad scar, but we're optimistic. We're going to make sure to use a good scar cream every day and protect it from the sun for the next 6 months.
The night of the accident I tried to sleep but it was very hard. I was in complete shock, and my mind and body were trying to recuperate. It took me about 2 days to get over it, and it took Whitney about 5 hours. I'm hoping I don't have to step in to a hospital for a LONG time!
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