To be honest I feel rather lucky that we’ve made it almost to E’s 3rd birthday with only one dash to A&E, so I guess we were probably due another one on Tuesday when poor E was running along in front of me and suddenly, for no apparent reason, fell on her head. She just tripped over from standing, but doesn’t seem to have yet realised that in this situation it’s a good idea to put your hands out. As a result she just flipped forward at considerable speed onto her forehead with an audible crunch.
She screamed, I panicked, thus fulfilling our individual roles in this scene perfectly. But once we’d both calmed down a bit E seemed perfectly fine and I was pretty sure she was ok. Even so (and following advice from NHS direct) I took her along to A&E just to be on the safe side as it was just before nap time and I didn’t want to leave her alone in bed with a potential head injury while I sat fretting downstairs.
A&E, it turns out, is brilliant fun if you are 2 and 3/4. The paediatric A&E at Kings is thankfully separated from the main unit (anyone who’s watched 24 Hours In A&E will appreciate what a good thing this is!) and it has a play room! E immediately found a toy BBQ and a very kind older boy who she could boss about mercilessly (whoever the parents of that 8 year old are, I hope they are suitably proud – their son has the patience of a saint!). The only thing more exciting that this (and getting to miss nap time) was the nurses. In triage the lady asked E to explain what had happened, which she managed fairly well before giving the poor women a lengthy, and not wholly accurate description of her lunch. When we went for assessment the nurse had a torch in the shape of a frog which she very nearly didn’t get back when E decided to use it to “stamp” every single page of her hefty drugs manual (another nurse, facing away from us and attempting to draw up an injection for someone else, was struggling with her task as E was making her giggle so much).
So worries allayed, we headed home with a print out of things to look out for* and let my Mr Bump cool pack make everything better.
I’m glad we’ve only had 2 trips to A&E in 3 years. I hope we can keep it that way!
SB
*The sheet contained the useful advice that we should return if E had a seizure or lost consciousness and that we shouldn’t give her any sleeping pills that night. Just thought I’d pass that on in case anyone else was unaware of those little parenting gems.
southwarkbelle.com 