First trip to the ER

"The guardian angels of life fly so high as to be beyond our sight, but they are always looking down upon us."

- Jean Paul Richter

I swear our little Alex has some sort of guardian angel watching over him!! From being born all blue/grey, not really breathing and having the cord wrapped around his neck, to our NICU neonatal necrotizing (NEC) watch, to the scare he gave us on NYE....

It was just before 6:00 p.m. and Jaime and I were preparing the house and patio for our festivities. The boys had been "helping" us and playing all day, when Alex decided to climb over the banister above the garage. Jaime had just run down the GATED staircase to put something away, and I was just inside our apartment.

All of a sudden I hear Jaime yell "No! No! No! No!!!" I jumped up and ran outside expecting to see that one of the boys had fallen off the Little Tykes playground or something... As I rounded the corner, I only saw Connor and the gated staircase. Then, I saw Jaime coming up the stairs with a screaming/crying Alex in his arms.

He had fallen just over 3 meters (10 feet) to the concrete floor below!! I can't even describe how I felt, mostly nauseous and scared I think. I took Alex and Jaime called his brother, Arturo, to come take us to the urgencias (ER) since neither one of us was in any condition to drive and he lives nearby. We loaded everyone into the car and got to the hospital as fast as we could trying to keep Alex awake as we drove.

The ER was pretty busy, but they took us directly to a room in the pediatric area. I suppose a screaming toddler with head trauma is a pretty urgent thing. Everyone there was very nice even though I didn't understated most of what they were saying. Arturo checked us in and watched Connor while Jaime and I stayed with Alex. The "chichon" (bump) on his head was so huge his head looked deformed (a la Elephant Man), his head and ear were scraped up and he kept crying and crying.

Luckily he never blacked out or vomited, so that was a good sign. They took his temp and gave him some Dalsy (their brand name for ibuprofen) and then took a couple of X-ray's. Then we waited...

I went out to see how Arturo was doing with Connor, and Lela (grandma) was there as well. We were so lucky to have concerned family there to support us and watch Connor who was, understandably, a bit upset as well...not to mention starving. Lela and tio Arturo gave him a Kit Kat which he inhaled...he must have thought that was pretty great.

Back in the ER the doctor told us the X-ray's looked good and that she thought Alex would be okay. She said that the X-ray couldn't detect any bleeding, and we would just need to watch him for unusual symptoms or behavior. Because of the size of his head/bump and the distance he fell, she also gave us the option to leave him there overnight. They would not monitor him in any way other than to look in on him occasionally, and only one of us could elect to stay with him. The primary benefit would be that we would already be in the hospital should something happen. We decided to bring him home where we could all be together and both of us could watch him all night (and where we were with germs we knew).

We arrived back home around 8:00 p.m., we fed the boys, got them to bed, and then prepared for our guests. Of course it was NYE and there were parties and fireworks all over the neighborhood, so the boys didn't have a really "fair" shot at at good nights rest, but they did well overall. Alex woke up several times, we gave him more ibuprofen, nothing major.

He woke up as usual the next morning with his head "back to normal" except for the scraped ear. He was a bit off balance and perhaps a little more tired and sensitive (could have been the meds), but you almost wouldn't know anything happened...Although, we certainly remember.

It's difficult not to "replay" those moments over and over and, I can only imagine all the other possible scenarios. Certainly, none of them would have turned out like this. It's all still so unbelievable, and a scary reminder of how life can change in an instant. We still need to watch him for a couple of days, but hopefully all will continue to be well. Here are some pictures and a video of our angels on New Year's Day: