Get the Smelling Salts, STAT

The continuation of Wyatt's bounding stair story ends happy but is pretty stressful.  Hayley, eager to leave our house, went to work with me on Sunday so she could get on an early train.  Wyatt was doing fine when I left in the morning.  He was a little out of it but that is normal for him.  He wakes up like a bear.  I am already dreading when he is going to school and I have to wake him up in the morning.  I am probably going to have to wake him 12 times before he gets up.  Anyway, I left with my only worry being Hayley.

When I got home, Mom told me that he was clearly not himself. He barely woke up, never even began playing, was unbalanced and totally out of it.  Normally an extremely steady walker, he seemed to regress to his earlier days, walking into walls and stumbling.  It was concerning enough to send me into a tailspin of horrid fantasies of brain hemorrhaging, seizures, his growth staling, tumors, clots, etc.  I called Dr. Greg, who wanted us to go right to the hospital.  He said that it was a precautionary visit which quelled some of my fears but only minimally.

Rebecca was so out of her mind crazy with worry she jump on a train and met Mom, Wyatt, and I.  All the doctors confirmed that he was probably fine but they wanted to run a CAT scan to be on the safe side.  My options where to have Wy sedated, try to get him to sleep, or wrap him up and strap him down.  Sedation seemed over the top and try as I may getting him to sleep was impossible.  He was obsessed with all the tools, hoses, and various shiny objects the littered his hospital room.  Sleep was the farthest thing from his mind.  With only one option remaining, I was overwrought knowing that this experience was going to be exhaustingly awful for both of us.  There were about 8 doctors, technicians, and nurses that wrapped him up like a mummy, taped him together then strapped him to the CAT scan table.  I tried to help, tried to calm him as he began screaming when he didn't understand but nothing helped.  He just kept on looking at me with eyes that begged to know what was going on.  It was heart breaking.

We all had to run out of the room while the machine was working.  I told them to hurry about 12 times.  You could hear his strangled, hysterical sobs through the microphone.  I glanced at the computer screen as the scan of his brain appeared.  I had no idea what I was looking for.  Then I saw a black spot at the very front of his perfect brain.  The room immediately fell icy silent and I forgot to breathe.  I started praying, begging really.  I went perfectly numb, time stopped and it felt like hours.  The technician sighed and said she was going to take another.  Wyatt continued his intermittent wailing as the machine glided him back into place.  I watch as his brain appeared again completely perfect, a web of interlocking pieces.  The technician said, 'He's good.  He moved.  He's fine.'  Someone hit the play button and I ran into the room to untie him.  I took him out of the room, both of us shaking, tears brimming in my eyes, with his legs still bound in sheets.

Relief doesn't even begin to describe what I felt in that scan room.  I have solace in the fact that he will never remember any of this.  I am glad that we got the scan done so I could have peace of mind that he was completely unharmed by his fall but it was still traumatizing.  I have come to the horrifying realization that Wy and I might be in the hospital every 6 months.  Despite my overall clumsiness, I have only been to the ER a handful of times including some stitches and some broken toes.  Already in Wyatt's 13 months we have been to the ER twice.  I know that boys are traditionally more rough and tumble but if this every 6 months pattern continues one of us is not going to make it to puberty.  I'm betting on me.