I am going to post the photos from Gabriel's accident on Sunday. They aren't war level photos, and there are no bones, no matter, nothing like that, just blood. Lots of fucking blood. Blood and wounds. And I'll be detailing precisely what happened, and that may not be easy to stomach for some people.
Here we go.
On Sunday morning, I told Gabriel to go switch his laundry into the dryer. He said, "Ok, mom!" and then all I heard was about ten thuds, and then silence.
Gabriel had fainted at the top of the stairs, and fallen down the entire flight. We have twelve stairs in our house, no carpeting, just hardwood, with a hardwood banister. Derek got up and ran down, saw Gabriel out fucking cold at the bottom of the stairs, with blood everywhere. Very much everywhere. I screamed, and called 911 in an absolute fucking panic. Derek was trying to rouse Gabriel, which wasn't working, and I was trying to stay calm enough to be understood by the 911 operator, which ALSO wasn't working.
Gabriel eventually came to, panicked, asked where he was, Derek told him he fell and he needed to stabilize his body. Gabriel passed out again. I peeked downstairs, saw my son crumpled and mangled at the bottom of the stairs, saw the blood pooling all around him, and I screamed again into the ear of the 911 operator that someone needed to come now, there was blood everywhere and my son wasn't responding.
Derek was screaming things up at me that I couldn't understand, until he said, "DREA! DREA THERE IS FUCKING MATTER EVERYWHERE!"
And I lost my god damn shit. I started bawling into the phone that my husband is telling me my son's brains are everywhere, there is so much blood and I don't want my son to die. The 911 operator didn't tell me to calm down once (like a fucking champion), she just kept asking me questions. She asked to talk to Derek, so I had to go downstairs and really take a full look at what had happened. Gabriel's head was covered in a towel that was soaked through with blood. Blood was all over his body. His arm was at a weird angle, his eyes weren't right, he was in hysterics and shaking, there was blood all over the floor behind Derek, and as I handed the phone to Derek, a fresh set of sobs came flying out of me, even though my brain was like, BITCH BE COOL. BE COOL FOR GABRIEL.
Derek handed the phone back to me, I was told to go wait for the ambulance outside. So I did just that while Derek, the sexy powerhouse of calm and TBI aftercare knowledge that he is, kept Gabriel still and awake and as not panicked as could reasonably be expected. The ambulance showed up about ten minutes later, decked in PPE, asked me questions about 'rona symptoms in a spitfire manner while they made their way into the yard, then they came in and took over for Derek.
Gabriel was crying, my big guy is still such a kid, and nothing illustrates that better than an injury, and he was making it really clear that he had had his memory knocked right out of him. He couldn't remember ANYTHING, he couldn't answer basic questions. He just knew he was afraid and that his head hurt.
They got Gabriel into the ambulance, and made us put on face masks, which freaked Gabriel right the fuck out because he couldn't breathe through it, but he was so good and kept it on, anyway. These pictures are before the mask was put on Gabriel.
I get why the emergency responder looks so fucking shocked or displeased or judgmental about me having my cell phone out when my son is very obviously badly damaged in front of me. I feel like that might be something a lot of people wonder. I feel like it's something I would smugly wonder myself, were someone else posting pictures like this. How can any parent have the frame of mind to take PHOTOS when their child is wasting away in front of them?
I don't know, man. I just knew to take photos, and say what you want, but I'm fucking glad I did.
I really want to shout out to the hospital for letting me be in there with Gabriel, too. Their policy right now because of COVID-19 is no visitors allowed, and they would have been well within their rights to tell me to G the fuck O. I told them I understood if I had to sit and wait in the lobby, but uh....I'm not gonna lie, I only said that AFTER they told me I could stay. I would have fucking fought them hard if they had tried to send me away from my minor child. I know I'm supposed to do my part and err on the side of caution and listen to doctors, but uh, fuck a lot of listening in THIS scenario. Thankfully, I was allowed to stay and I didn't have to look like an ignorant cunt.
This is when Gabriel looked up at me and said, "Mom, am I going to die?" and he started crying, and let's be real, I hadn't STOPPED crying since I saw him in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, so even though I told him no, he just had a concussion, it didn't help either of us not cry more.
They took him off to do the scans of his neck and his brain and his spine to make sure there wasn't any blood on his brain, or fractures, or anything else lurking under the surface that was cause for even more alarm.
When those came back negative, they took the stabilizing brace off and let Gabriel rest for a little bit. His face mask had fallen on to the floor, but they didn't give him another one.
I was trying to see if I could get a good assessment of his injuries, but I couldn't. He was caked in blood, it was smeared everywhere, and I was afraid to touch him because nothing had been cleaned yet and I didn't want to get gunkus into his open wounds. What I HAD learned, though, after the doctor came in and assessed Gabriel's head, was that there had not been anything cracked open enough to spill brains out. Derek's screamed, "DREA THERE IS MATTER EVERYWHERE" was, in fact, a hilarious misunderstanding. What Derek assumed was matter was actually...bloodied cat hair and bloodied bits of cardboard.
Funny as fuck to us NOW....not as funny when I thought my son's beautiful brains were spilling out onto the god damn floor.
This was when Gabriel had been given the numbing gel, before the actual stitches. The full tally of head wounds was three: one gash that needed 5 stitches, one gash on the eyebrow that ALMOST needed stitches but the doctor decided on glue instead, and one abrasion that didn't need anything other than to stay clean.
Here's what you don't see in these two pictures: the five minutes of raucous screaming from one Gabriel Uriah over being cleaned up and sterilized for stitches, being given the numbing gel, being given his numbing injection, and being told by the doctor that all of that would, in fact, burn and hurt until the injection kicked in. He settled down pretty immediately after the numbness took hold, and after the stitching, they pretty much left us be for about an hour. They came in to check on Gabriel's hematomas, which had both reduced in size by about 95%, but that still left Gabriel's dome pretty fucking Frankenstein's Monster-esque, so they came in and put an ice pack on his forehead for awhile.
You can kind of see the bump on the side of his head, but it isn't nearly as huge as it was. The ice pack fell off, and when I tried to put it back on, Gabriel said he needed a few minutes alone. Well then.
I fixed it, anyway, because that's what moms do, man. We don't immediately heed our children's wishes without doing what we think is best for them first. I fixed the ice pack, snapped that picture, and then gave him his alone time. Full disclosure? I still hadn't stopped crying. We had been in the hospital for a couple of hours at that point, and I had managed to just...like...slow cry and keep my voice normal sounding so Gabriel only saw me as calm and collected. But when he would ask for time alone, or he would doze off and I had a minute to myself, Niagara Fawlz, Frankie Angel.
The doctor came and found me about ten minutes later and told me that they were going to make sure Gabriel could sit up, they would give him one more body once over to make sure new pains hadn't arisen that we needed to check out, but if everything was good, we were free to go.
So we went home. Gabriel went straight upstairs and fell asleep, I continued to cry downstairs, and Derek went about his business, whatever it was. I don't remember. I woke Gabriel up every few hours to make him drink water, and when he only took small sips, I knew something was wrong. When he didn't want to eat, I knew something was wrong. I kept trying, because he needed SOMETHING, but my gut was telling me to prepare for the worst.
Gabriel threw up at about 9:30. His doctor had told me that if he throws up, to call, so I called, they advised that we take him back to the emergency room. So Derek took Gabriel down to Tripler, and I stayed home, because I am emetephobic and a fucking bad parent for not being able to curb my phobia enough to be there for my kid. Believe me, I have enough guilt about that, so any words from the peanut gallery are unfuckingnecessary, and I will thank you to keep your shit to yourself.
Derek was sending me updates the entire time. No more vomiting from Gabriel, he was reporting really low pain in his head, but he had separated the throbbing from pain (an interesting choice. Not one I'd make, but), and he was still super fucking out of it.
Gabriel got another EKG, they did more CT scans, they did a blood panel, and they gave him a bag of fluids, and then sent him home because everything looked good for someone with a concussion. They gave him some Zofran for his nausea and told us not to be alarmed if he's vomiting for the next couple of days (my walking nightmare, thanks), it's day three and beyond that we need to be wary of nausea and vomiting with.
In my first ever good news from the future, it's day five of concussion and Gabriel is doing GREAT. No nausea, no vomiting, appetite is back (though he is still sleeping a lot, but we know his brain needs the rest), the light is bothering him less, and he's staying up for longer and longer. More later.
Once the boys got home, Gabriel went right back upstairs to sleep. Derek gave him his Zofran and a few Tylenol, made him drink a glass of water, and then Gabriel was fucking OUT. For like, 14 hours.
The next day, I woke Gabriel up in the morning for some water, and to check his wounds and clean his stitches. I found him in a relatively good mood, chatty, considering, and best of all, he could fucking remember things from the day before. YAY!! Memory loss was a huge concern for me, because Gabriel had just forgotten a lot after knocking himself about. I asked him questions, but not too many, and if he had to take more than a second to think about it, I told him not to worry. Overall, he was in fine form.
Stitches looked good:
If you look at that tuft of hair, you can see a bit of particulate. Such bits were what Derek had mistaken for brain matter. There were bigger bits in his hair, too. I can absolutely see why Derek saw that and assumed the worst.
He spent most of the day resting. I kind of sponge bathed all of the blood off of him and cleaned up his face and upper body and head as best as I could, but it as all still pretty tender, and I could only do so much. He did toddle his way downstairs for dinner, though!!
That IS a huge pile of mermaid tails, yes. Gabriel still wasn't very hungry, so Derek gave him some of his steak, I made him some rice, and that was what he ate. I was very encouraged by his appetite and his ability to sit up for extended periods of time and not get dizzy, but eating dinner made him kinda tired, so he went back upstairs and headed to bed for the night.
Tuesday morning was an even better day. I woke him up just to make him drink some water, and I found him relatively alert and eager to chat, and hungry and in a good mood. So we headed downstairs, I made him some breakfast, and then I took pictures to keep tabs on how his healing was going. Day three saw the bruises forming, and the swelling moving into his face.
You can tell by that mop that he still hasn't washed up, but I didn't want to force him to take a shower yet. I tried to get him to take a bath, and he did, but he was too scared to wash his hair. Alright. Fair enough. Minor swelling was coming up into his eye area, his jawline is kinda swollen up not, too, but the big lump on the side of his dome where the stitches AREN'T has decreased quite a bit.
A crustache for the ages, giving John Waters a run for his money.
Tuesday was a better day than Monday. Gabriel had a normal appetite, he was happy, he joked around, he didn't nap nearly as much. He stayed in the living room with me for three hours, at one point, until I could tell he was looking a little worn out and I sent him upstairs for a rest. Gabriel asked if we could try and take a walk on Wednesday, and I obliged, but only kind of...his first follow up was on Wednesday, and I figured we could walk around the parking lot and see how he fared.
Wednesday, he woke up just fine for his appointment, got dressed, and he was raring to go. He put on his sunglasses because he was still a little sensitive to light, but other than that, no headaches, no nausea, no foggy brain, Gabriel seemed to be at about 75% back to his normal self.
His doctor checked out his basic functions, everything was great. No slurred speech, cognitive tests were great, she wasn't concerned about him at all. I did tell her I was a little concerned about epilepsy, because Gabriel told me the day before that this isn't his first time fainting. He's fainted once or twice before. It's always preceded by the same weird feeling, and then he falls down and wakes back up who knows how long later. A lot of the symptoms of ADD are identical to the symptoms of epilepsy, so it isn't out of the realm of possibility he's been misdiagnosed. She was understanding and set up a referral for his inner noggin to get checked out. She also set up some heart tests just to round out the testing and rule everything out. I didn't even think of a heart condition, but that's what she's there for, with all of her doctorly knowledge.
The trip to the doctor actually spent Gabriel's energy pretty fucking soundly, so we didn't end up taking a lap around the parking lot. He got home and went right upstairs. He came down a few hours later, and I grabbed the pictures of his face to document his healing:
Still a pretty lump sized lump there, but much smaller than it was.
Well. That is far from great. That's a lot of swelling and uh...uncool coloration. That glue over his eyebrow gash is holding pretty fucking solidly, though!!! You can see some of it, but for the most part, it's all neatly covered and the glue has stayed put. Which means he hasn't picked at it, which was a big concern of mine. You can see little hints of the bruising on his earlobe, but it's worst at the top. His jawline is still swollen, too. But his stitch site looks good!
Aw, it's like a little caterpillar!!!
He ate his lunch, and rested for the rest of the day. I read to him almost half of Good Omens, which he's really been enjoying, but it was a really quiet day. He was getting all of the rest he needed, drinking water like he needed to, the day was tame, but really great.
Yesterday was a banner day, until today.
Yesterday Gabriel woke up, had his water, came downstairs for breakfast, had me read a little bit of Good Omens to him, and then complained about being bored. So we colored. We colored a LOT. We took some breaks to have lunch, and to take a ten minute walk, and to call his dad, but then we resumed coloring. We chatted, we joked around, we had a great day. I even forgot to take pictures of his face, just a selfie of us on our little jaunt around the neighborhood:
It was the most promising sign of a speedy recovery we've had so far.
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