May 23, 2009 (Camping- Day 1)

This morning, we decided to take Max to the ER again. He's been waking up screaming after a few hours of falling asleep every night since he hit his head. When we come into the room, he's holding his head saying his head hurts. He wakes up after naps like this too. We called both doctors offices and the ER nurse and they all strongly recommended we bring him in to be checked. While I was putting Max's socks on to leave, he said "Are I goin' on a long long trip?" I told him not yet cause he had to go get his head checked again first, and he said "but dat's not fair". I stayed home with Hailey and Jack while Bruce took Max. The doctor did a full neurological workup on Max and also decided to do a contrast CT this time. They had to put an IV in for the dye. First, they did some blood work. Max watched closely, even the needle going in, and didn't even cry. All the nurses were amazed and talking about him in the halls. Then they did the IV. He screamed for that, but still held perfectly still. They said they had to use a bigger needle for the contrast. It took 4 tries. Poor guy. They wouldn't let Bruce go back this time for the CT scan. It was a longer (30 minute) one. Max was very good and went with them without complaining. He really likes riding on "the bed with wheels" though. He was also excited to get to go to the "big wheel" (the CT scan) again. He asked "Are I gonna go to da big wheel again and it spin around me?" They said he was such a good little boy. He talked to the doctor very well and answered all his questions for the neurological workup. When the doctor asked if he had any brothers or sisters at home, he said "I hab a brudder and a sister and a mommy and a daddy." He checked out OK and the CT scan didn't show any bleeding into the brain. They sent him home with the same diagnosis- a concussion. But they were very glad we brought him in again, especially since we were going camping and wouldn't be close to a hospital. They said that these symptoms can last for a week, sometimes even up to 4 weeks, and until a week has past he's still at risk for serious complications so to bring him in if he throws up more than once a day or if any new symptoms show up. They got back home around 3:30 and we left right away for camping. We stopped at McDonald's for dinner on the way and got to the campground around 7:00. They puppy was very good riding in the car and slept the whole way there. The kids got out their toys and started playing right away (Max with his tractors and Hailey with her dolls). I set Jack up with some toys in his highchair, so Bruce and I set up camp while they were all busy playing. After we finished, we had some time to just sit and relax watching the kids play. They had fun playing in the dirt and rocks around the fire pit, making me salads, pies, and cakes. Max made me a birthday cake using sticks for candles. He sang "Happy Dareday (Birthday) to you" and had me blow them out. Abby seemed to enjoy being outside on her tie out. I think she likes camping. She's such a good dog. When we went in to get ready for bed, Hailey and Max climbed right into their sleeping bags. I was just getting things cleaned up but was still planning on reading books and tucking them in. Hailey sat up and said "Mommy, we forgot to do two very important things- brush teeth and pray. I don't care if we don't read books tonight though, cause it's really late and we're tired." When they got done brushing their teeth, Hailey said "But can I just tell Max one little Lightning McQueen story? He'll really like it." I told her go ahead, and she told a very nice story that Max really enjoyed. Then she said to Max "OK, now it's time to pray." She prayed first ending her prayer like this "...And help Max to calm down and go to sleep and now Max wants to pray, Jesus." Max started to pray and said "But I don't know how." (This is the sort of weird things he's been doing since his head injury, like forgetting things he's been doing for awhile.) She said OK, I'll help you. Just say what I say." She told him what to say and he repeated after her. It was a very sweet prayer, so cute to hear them. Max told me about going to the hospital this morning and said "Da doctor poked me weally hard- a BIG poke!" Daddy took Hailey to the bathroom and then to see they lake on their way back. She loved going at night and whispered to me, "Daddy took me to see the lake at night. It was dark. You should go see it. You just turn right, then go straight, and it's right there, really close. I won't tell Max so he won't be sad." I put Jack in the crib and he fell asleep quickly. Hailey and Max were giggling and talking alot so we had to separate them, but they fell asleep pretty quickly after that, around 10:30.

I was busy packing all day and doing laundry. The kids enjoyed playing outside most of the day while Bruce and I took turns watching them. I kept an eye on them while I did laundry, and daddy kept an eye on them while he was outside packing up the camper. While he was out with the kids, I worked on getting the kids suitcases packed. It was nice for the kids cause they got to be outside most of the day. As Max stepped out the door this morning, he smiled and excitedly said "Da dockor say I can climb now! And swing too!" I told him not yet and he whined and said "Why? But dat's not fair." He then headed straight for the sandbox. He sat in the sandbox most of the time he was outside. And Hailey mostly stood by the fence talking with the neighbor kids. It sure was a hot day. I got out popsicles for the kids and gave some to the neighbor kids too. They all sat in front of the fence while eating their popsciles. Max made a train with the slides pushing them all together. Hailey and Max had fun playing on that until lunchtime. After lunch, I asked Hailey if she wanted to feed Jack a bottle so I could keep working. Before she got a chance to answer, Max excitedly said "I want to!" He fed him until Jack got distracted and didn't want any more, about half the bottle. Then daddy finished feeding him the rest. All day if I was in living room and Jack started crawling away from me he would stop after a couple feet and then wave. The puppy actually went to the door and scratched on it to go out. I let her out and she peed right away. She still has occasional accidents , one or two, every day but she's getting better. She sure likes to play. She especially loves to get ahold of the kids toys whenever she gets the chance. Anything she can find laying around on the floor, toys, stuffed animals, even the bigger ones she'll drag around the house. Sometimes she'll even grab a toy away from the kids while they are playing with it. Jack will start crying and I'll look over and see Abby taking his toy away. She'll even take some of Max's bigger tractors and somehow push or pull them around. Hailey and Max know just what to do to get her to stop playing with their stuff. They just grab one of her toys and throw it across the room and she drops the toy she's playing with and chases hers instead. At least she doesn't really chew on their stuff, she just plays with it. The only thing she really tries to chew is Jack's pacifiers. As soon as she hears one of those drop out of the crib she gets it and runs. She's chewed up a few of those now. The last few times I've given the kids baths, Abby starts jumping up like she's trying to jump into the tub. She puts her paws on the edge of the tub and begs to get in. Then tonight when I turned the shower on to rinse their hair she went nuts and really started jumping and crying to get in. I thought it was just that she wanted to get in with the kids but tonight she did the same thing when I was in the shower. Lately, I've been giving her baths in the bathtub and using the shower to rinse her and she seems to really enjoy it. She also loves to run around the house after her bath while she's s all wet. I guess she was just begging for a bath too. I wouldn't be surprised one of these days if she actually makes it in, especially when she gets a little bigger. I'm going to have to start locking her in her crate while I give the kids a bath.

Max playing doctor with "Nunkie fwiend".

Asking "Do you don't fell bery (very) good?"

Giving "Nunkie fwiend" a dish to throw up in.




Max was doing much better today. He was back to playing again as soon as he woke up this morning. The only thing is he's still not eating very well and he gets irritated very easily, which they said is common in children with head injuries. He cried when his feet got wet in the grass, when the backs to his sandals slipped down, and lots of other little things like that, stuff he normally wouldn't care about. He also hasn't been using the potty anymore since he fell. Even though he's been completely potty trained for quite some time, he's been having accidents in his pants everytime he has to go. They said to just have patience with him because it's all normal after a head injury, and they said that could last six weeks or more, some times even a year or more. It's hard to believe that a bump on the head can cause so many problems. I guess they call it post concussion syndrome, and kids under five are much more likely to suffer from it than an adult or older child. It's still very frustrating though, even though they say it's pretty normal in a kid his age to have these types of behavioral problems after a head injury. He still wanted to wear his hospital bracelet most of the day. He put the other one on his monkey and then played doctor. He layed his monkey on his bed and got the doctor kit out. He listened to his heart and told him to take a deep breath. Then he got the thermometer and said "Put dis under your tongue." He put the thermometer right up to the monkey's mouth but then whined saying "But he don't hab a tongue." I showed him how to take it under his arm instead which made him happy. Then he pretended to get out some medicine from the bottle and said "Now put this right on your tongue. But don't swallow it. Only swallow your spit. It's just gonna melt." That's exactly what the nurse told Max when she gave him the medicine for the nausea. It was so funny how he did everything that he remembered them doing. I worked on packing and also cleaning the house today. We are leaving on Saturday morning for camping, and we are having an open house while we are gone on Sunday. As Jack was crawling away from me in the living room, he stopped and looked around his shoulder and waved at me. Then he went back to crawling toward kitchen. I brought him back after he headed for the dog water dish. He played for a few minutes and then started crawling away again. He again turned to look back at me and then waved before heading back to the kitchen. After dinner I took the kids outside to play. I pushed them on the swings. Max wanted me to push him high like Hailey but the doctor doesn't want him to swing yet. When I told him that, Max said "But I'm all better cause Jesus make me better. Jesus did." I put him in the bumble bee swing instead and pushed him high in that which made him happy. He also wanted to climb up and go down the slide but the doctor said no climbing either. I opened the sand box for him and he had fun playing with his tractors in the sand. He played for over an hour in there. I sat at the bottom of the slide with Jack. I put Jack behind me so he could sit and play on the slide. He started climbing up it. Hailey was cracking up laughing. She thought that was so funny. It was pretty funny. He got a little ways up and I had to pull him back down or I think he would have went all the way. He was laughing and thought it was funny every time I pulled him and he would slide down. I took the kids out to the camper with me while I packed a few things in it. They played with the toys in their backpacks. We stayed out till bedtime. After reading books and getting the boys tucked in bed, I took Hailey out and we sat on the porch swing while we read her books. She really enjoyed that.

Two ER Visits In One Day

Max was very excited about his hospital bracelet from his first ER visit. He didn't even want to take it off. Every once in awhile he'd try to get up off the couch and run around. But it only lasted a few seconds and he'd be back on the couch again complaining that his head hurt again. I was surprised that I got such a smile out and it only lasted long enough for this one picture.

These picture was taken less than fifteen minutes after the above picture. And he was back on the couch looking like this again complaining that his head hurt. This is what he looked like most of the time other the couple times that he tried to get up to play but those really only lasted a few seconds.

Most of the time he'd lay there like this with his eyes half closed. He looked absolutely miserable.

Hailey brought him a bunch of books to read. He tried sitting up for awhile to read them but only got through the first book and then had to lay back down again.


This morning, the kids had fun helping daddy wash his car. They loved when daddy would spray them with the hose. They would get laughing so hard as they came running to get sprayed. Max was also really into helping daddy wash the car. Daddy gave him a rag and he was very serious as he scrubbed the car. He helped until they were finished. I think his favorite part was when daddy gave him the hose and let him spray the car. Hailey helped a little too but had more fun sneaking up on daddy hoping to get sprayed. While they were finishing up with the car, Bruce got a phone call. So Bruce was on the phone and I was just around the corner talking to Ken, our neighbor. All of a sudden Max came walking up to me and asked me to hold him. He was acting weird. He layed his head on my shoulder. I asked him what was the matter and he wouldn't talk. Ken tried to cheer him up by tickling him. Instead of laughing like he usually does, he started to get irritated and told us to stop it. (He didn't even like me talking to him when I was trying to be silly with him to get him to smile.) Since it was almost naptime, I asked him if he was tired and he said "I don't feel berry good." I took him inside and he layed on the couch while I got Jack down for nap. I thought it was weird how Max was acting so tired all of a sudden. He wasn't acting just tired like he normally does when it's naptime. I knew something wasn't right. I went over to check on him and that's when I noticed that he had a scrape and bruise on the side of his head (right on his temple). I asked him what happened and he said he fell. After asking him where he told me "on da rocks and da hard thing." He said "I fall down in the rocks and hit my head really hard on dat hard thing." We took him outside and asked him to show us where he fell. He showed us right where it happened and pointed to the wood flower box along the driveway. Bruce said he had been balancing along it and must have fallen when he had his back turned as he was walking back and forth in the driveway talking on the phone. Max didn't cry or anything when it happened so neither of us knew he even fell. We both thought that was a little weird too that he didn't cry. As we walked back in the house, Max threw up which was within an hour of him hitting his head. So we called the doctor and they said to take him straight to the ER. There they checked him over and said that it was pretty normal for young kids to act tired and throw up right after a head injury even if it wasn't serious. They gave us the option of doing a CT scan or taking him back home and having us watch him closely, which is what the doctor recommended since it was probably too early for anything to show up anyway. They said that they are more concerned about these symptoms when they occur a couple hours after the head injury. And since we live so close to the hospital, the doctor said he felt comfortable sending him home without the CT scan, but told us to watch him closely over the next 24 hours. They told us not to let him play on swings, climb, or ride his bike for the next 24 hours cause even after a mild head injury a second one can be fatal. The doctor told us to try to keep him kind of quiet for a while and suggested we put a movie in for him when we got home. He fell asleep on the way home before we even got out of the parking lot. When we carried him back into the house he started crying and wouldn't stop for anything. He kept complaining that his head hurt. He cried for about 20 minutes and then finally laid back on the couch and calmed down. I turned on the TV and asked him if he wanted to watch Cars, his favorite movie. He then threw a fit asking me to turn the movie off. His head must have really been hurting. He pretty much just layed on the couch until bedtime, only getting up a couple times to try to play with the puppy. But right away, he would get right back on the couch and say "I gotta lay down. I too tired." As I was getting him ready for bed at around 7:30, he threw up again. The doctor said to make sure we brought him back in if he had any more vomiting, so I called Bruce at work. He came home and my mom came over to stay with Hailey and Jack. As soon as we got to the hospital he threw up again all over the floor. They got us back right away and ordered a CT scan. Daddy was trying to explain to him what a CT scan was like. He told him "It's like a big wheel and it's going to take a picture of your head." Max was very excited about going in "da big wheel." He smiled big as they rolled him down the hallway on the bed. When he got back, he was eating a popsicle as they wheeled him back into the room. He really enjoyed his ride on the bed and told us "I ride on dis. It even gots wheels." He told me all about going in the "big wheel" too. They said he did really well and he didn't even complain when they put the blocks around his head and then buckled it down. He was excited to get two stickers, one for him and one for his "Nunkie fwiend" (monkey). He loved his police car sticker and picked an Elmo sticker for his monkey. He had thrown up again on his way to the CT, so they gave him some medicine to help with the nausea. He started feeling much better after that and was being very silly. He asked for a drink (he wanted milk but they would only give him water) and they also gave him another popsicle which made him very happy. They came back to tell us they didn't see any bleeding into the brain on the CT scan but wanted to observe him for a couple more hours. With how Max was acting when it happened, they said it's very likely that he lost consciousness for a short while when he fell. They discharged us with a diagnosis of vomiting due to a concussion. And gave us more papers on head injuries telling us to bring him back in if his symptoms get any worse. When we got home, as I tucked him in bed, he said "I got a popsible (popsicle) at the hosibal (hospital)."