Vol. 139 - Is it even fatherhood if you don't end up in the ER sometimes?
On head injuries and solo parenting
I was holding the blood-soaked paper towel tight to my son’s head when my phone pinged with a text from Emily.
Okay, pushing back finally. Will text when I land. Love you guys xoxo
Do I tell her that our son, mere moments before, took a header into the corner of the metal bleachers at our local BMX track and that he now has an inch-long gash in his forehead so deep that I could definitely see his skull?
Probably best to leave all that until she lands.
Sounds good, love you! I texted back with my one free hand.
Emily have something of a rule whenever the other is out of town that says, no matter what, EVERYTHING IS GOING GREAT.
Brother and sister not getting along?
Everything’s great.
No one slept a wink?
Everything’s great.
Baby girl was up until eleven crying for mommy?
Everything’s great.
Minor house fire?
Everything’s great.
Headed to the emergency room to get massive gash in seven-year-old’s forehead stitched up?
Everything’s great.
Per our agreement, you wait until the other one gets home from wherever they are and then give them the download, the true story, of whatever transpired during your solo parenting exercise. Because why worry them, especially when there’s nothing to worry about?
Now, granted, an inch-long gash in the forehead is a bit more serious than a bit of misbehavior. Still, what could Emily have done? The plane doors were already closed. And anyway, there were some experienced first responders at the track who assessed that our son’s injury was relatively minor before expertly dressed his wound and sending us off to the ER.
There was nothing Emily could do except worry. So why worry her?
That said, there was no way I was going to wait the two days until she got home to let her know what happened. I figured I’d tell her when she landed in Alabama, where she was headed for a weekend of work.
Text me when you land I typed.
In the frantic moments that followed a semi-serious head injury to my child, as I skittered about trying to load three BMX bikes, race helmets, pads, water bottles, and all of the ephemera a family of bike racers need to race bikes, I locked my keys in the car. I cursed more than I’d like to admit, trying to sort out the next plan of action (Smash the window! Call an ambulance? Why not both?!) before recognizing that there were cops and firefighters everywhere. The BMX track we race at sits directly beside a minor league baseball stadium and there were fireworks planned for after that night’s game. Thankfully, one of the cops had a wedge and a slim jim, was able to unlock my car door in about five minutes, and off we went.
And so, some ninety minutes later, as I sat across an exam room from my son, whose head was wrapped in a tight white bandage, I filled Emily in.
“Everything is fine,” I said, as she called me from the airport Birmingham. “But we are in the ER.”
As I explained what happened, I could hear her crying a bit on the other end. I know the feeling. As a parent, there are few things worse than helplessness.
She asked if she should come home. I told her that we were almost done, that he was happily eating candy and playing Subway Surfer on the iPad my sister included in the It’s Probably Gonna be a Long Night in the ER bag she handed over when I dropped our daughter off with her before heading to the hospital.
Just like the first responders at the BMX track, my sister, a veteran doctor, gave my son a cursory examination in her driveway, determining that, so long as he kept the wound wrapped up, it didn’t appear to be anything major. There didn’t seem to be any brain trauma and, by the time we got to her house, the bleeding had mostly stopped.
My son and I spent most of the few hours in the emergency room laughing, playing Subway Surfer, mugging for photos, discussing the various times I found myself in the ER when I was a little boy, and calling Emily to fill her in on the progress of our son’s open head wound. Eventually, a small team of doctors numbed his forehead, stitched him up, and sent us on our way.
It was nearing midnight as we pulled into my sister’s driveway to pick up my daughter, who was steadfastly refusing to go to sleep until I came to get her.
My sister examined his stitches, saying what a good job the doctor’s did. By then in a much calmer state, I told her that I was pretty sure I saw his skull when the accident first happened.
“Yeah, I didn’t wanna say anything earlier,” my sister said. “I didn’t wanna freak you out. It’s not like there was anything you could have done at that point.”
See, she gets it.
Everything’s fine. Even when it’s not.