1-11-12

Lots of stuff has been happening around the homestead.

Both the saplings made honor roll at their respective schools, yay!

Then the Firebird suffered a concussion during basketball practice. He told me when he arrived home he had taken a crack from a team mate's head that bloodied his nose. I was distracted and didn't think it too serious so I told him to grab a bag of frozen veggies to apply to his nose. An hour later he didn't respond to the dinner call, and I went to check on him.

He complained of being exhausted and his head hurting and I quickly grabbed a flashlight to check his pupil response. His right pupil was not contracting in response to the light and spun eerily trying to avoid the light.

Everything stopped and I took him into the ER. We weren't treated with much priority there, but the doc recommended a ct scan to be on the safe side. The scan came back normal, so we went home with instructions to watch for anymore symptoms. (headache, slurred speech, vision trouble, etc)

The Firebird was adamant about attending school the next day, (and wanting to play in a far away game the next evening)so I put him on the bus and called the high school. The athletic director told me the school's sports injury specialist would take a look at him and would have to clear him to play again.

Word came back via the Firebird later that he couldn't play, but he was going to the game on the bench. When he was examined, he had experienced dizziness when tippping his head back, so he was still exhibiting signs of a concussion.

He felt pretty miserable after sitting through the loud game. I kept him quiet for the weekend, and again he insisted on attending school on Monday. No practice or game after school, so he rode the bus home, or to the bus stop.

He sent me a text from the bus asking me to make sure I was at the stop on time. When he got off the bus, he started crying; his head hurt so badly. Everything stopped, and I rushed him into the ER.

I managed to get him into a wheelchair, and when intake saw that he had been in a few days before, they rushed us right through- way down the back of the ER, where all was quiet except for the nearby bleep of monitors. I was getting a little scared.

He was sent off for another CT scan. I was told that sometimes bleeding in the brain can take several days to appear. The CT scan came back normal. He was diagnosed with post concussion syndrome, given a pill for nausea, some Ibuprofen and some Benydryl, and I was told to take him to his PCP for followup.

In the meantime, the Willow had developed a horrible cough. She had been fighting off a bug for awhile and it had obviously settled in her lungs, so I took her to the clinic the next morning for a script of Amoxycillin and kept the Firebird quiet at home. He had an appointment the next day.

His PCP laid down the law and told the Firebird to take the rest of the week off from school and sports, and the following week of vacation, and see how he felt after the New Year. He was pretty cooperative the first week but got pretty restless by the second week, texting back and forth with his coach (he was sorely missed by the team) trying to con me into at least letting him go WATCH the practices, but I held firm and howled about it being doctor's order's and I wasn't the bad guy...while wondering if I really wanted to let him go back to play at all.

Willow didn't get better on the Amoxycillin. She had been given capsules and can't swallow a pill. So we were dumping the powder in chocolate pudding. Her cough got worse. The script was changed to one of the cephalexans in liquid form and she thought that was yummy tasting so that went pretty well. She finished the course and still has a little congestion. Overall, she seems her old self again, yay.

The Firebird was cleared to gradually return to basketball. He had some minutes in the last game. He has fallen out of condition with two weeks off and been tired and trying to catch up on his work, too. He is on the student concil and had to been @ school before 7 this morning, and then attend school; finally a late practice tonight from 7-8:30.

Of course it is now my turn. I was laid low for three days with fever and sore throat and sinus pain. Then my ear filled up and I frantically swallowed Advil and Benydryl one after another until the pain subsided. All day yesterday I had the signs of a ruptured eardrum, so i finally went to the clinic this morning.

The Doc took one look inside the ear in question, quickly recoiled, and pronounced I had returned to my second childhood and had an inner ear infection. He handed me a ten day supply of Amoxycillin.

Welome January. :)

January 6 ,2012