The Emergency Room

In the past all my experiences with the Emergency Room included a long wait. Not this one. I walked in told the lady at the desk that I was Ian's mom and someone came to get me in less than 20 seconds. No paperwork. No questions. No waiting. They took me right to him. There was about a dozen doctors, nurses and technicians buzzing around him. They were wheeling his bed into the room for the CT scan and they told me I could go with him and talk to him.

His face was very pale and his lips purple. His head was wrapped in enough bandaging that he looked like he was wearing a turban. There was blood coming through both sides of the bandaging and dried blood and dirt all over his face. He had a neck brace on his neck. I held his hand and told him, "Mommy is here." He did not respond. His eyes were partially opened but not focused on me or anything, just slowly moving back and forth.

The CT images must have been immediately digitally shown to the doctors and I overheard them saying that he needed to go to emergency surgery right away. But first he was rushed for some more X-rays on his neck and this time I could watch but had to stand in the hall.

I wanted to be strong for Ian, so I wasn't completely sobbing, but could not stop the tears from falling down my face as I tried to take this all in. How could this be happening to my sweet little boy? The social worker asked if he had spoken to me and I said no but maybe it was all the pain medication. He told me that he didn't think Ian had been given any pain medication because it can interfere with surgery and that after an traumatic injury the body goes into an adrenaline rush, but then later crashes is completely exhausted which he felt was more likely the case.

They moved him into a spot in the ER and said that another head trauma patient was arriving and would have to go to surgery before Ian because it was a more critical case and Ian was stable and would be okay to wait. One of the doctors woke Ian and I heard him speak. It was soft and hard to understand, but it proved to me that he was not completely unconscious. Albert arrived and told me the details of the accident and we hugged and cried together in fear that we might be losing our precious little boy. They soon moved us to the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) to wait for surgery.