Keegen Potter

Keegen has pretty much always been an accident waiting to happen. Always climbing on things. No matter how i shove the chairs under the table, he finds a way to climb onto one and promptly fall off. Or pulls one over on himself. He already likes to jump off the stairs (ala Bode). He rolls his body on the big kickballs we have and does faceplants onto the tile. Zero self-preservation. A definite thrill-seeker...

What was meant to be a lovely playdate at Kristen's went awry today. We'd been there maybe 30 minutes when we headed to the playground. The big kids were at the top of the playset and Keegen toddled on over to the steps. He started stepping up them when he lost his footing and smacked his head into something. I saw a dark line on his forehead and sent up a silent prayer that it was a piece of mulch. Until that line started gushing blood and Keegen started crying. Oh. My. Gosh. Kristen ran off to get a wet towel and in the meantime i used my shirt to apply pressure, which truly pissed Keegen off. It was so deep I thought it would never stop bleeding (it actually did stop bleeding faster than i'd imagined) but i was fairly certain he would need stitches.

Luckily, Kristen had neighbors willing to keep an eye on the older kids and she drove me to the ED while i sat in the back with Keegen. As soon as it stopped bleeding and I took the towel off of his head, he acted totally FINE. Unbelievable. We checked in around 3:30. He looked a mess! The RN who triaged him was joking about bar fights and the like. Ugh. We were all covered in his blood. As most ED trips go, we waited a long time. Finally the doc came in and cleaned his cut out and said we could probably get away with gluing it. But on second thought he decided that cosmetically it was better to stitch it since it was so prominent on his forehead. So they put some numbing gel on his wound and we waited 1 1/2 hours and then he came back and stitched it up. Keegen was AMAZING while he was being stitched. They swaddled him so he couldn't move and a nurse held his head. And he just looked around. Smiled at Doug. Did this funny blinking eye thing (almost like, "well, can't move my arms, so i'll blink my eyes!"). A nurse and doctor came in from the hall because they couldn't believe he was being so good. They went on and on which was something really nice in the midst of something so unpleasant. He got 5 stitches and I hope it heals well.

While he was being stitched I noticed that his right pupil was dilated and asked about it. While the nurse put the numbing gel on his wound I think she got some in his eye, so i asked if that could cause the dilation. And while, yes, it could, they decided Keegs should get a CT scan just to rule out a head trauma (since a blown pupil can be an indication of that). So, another 1 1/2 hours later, we were in radiology, again swaddling my sweet baby, putting a lead apron on him and loading him into the scanner. Bizarre. And again, he did great. Couldn't hold his head still to save his life, but did awesome (a tech came out and held his head so they could get a clear picture).

Finally, the CT came through and the ED doc looked at it and said he was OK to go. Poor baby. Sooooooo past his bedtime (it was almost 9 when we left). Thank goodness "Finding Nemo" was on the TV. We watched it 3 times during our stay. It was perfect for him. He totally vegged to it. I am so grateful he's OK. And I can't thank Kristen enough for taking such good care of all of us--acting so quickly to get us to the ED and then heading home to take care of her kids and Bode (he was having too much fun and not so excited to see his dad when he went to pick him up!). While I never want to go through anything like this again, I have a feeling this will not be the last time we're in the ED with our boys. At least things ended well. And Keegen is happy to be sound asleep in his own bed!