I’m noticing a pattern.  Some kids go to the hospital a lot, some kids never see the inside of the E.R..  Some kids have long track records of broken limbs, tonsils and appendectomies that land them in the hospital.  Some kids are blessed with a total lack of medical intervention.

I have hospital kids.

It started right away with both of them:  each of them spent a solid week admitted after birth, with everything from jaundice to seizures and strokes.  No joke.  It was the best experience it could be with the amazing support from the incredible teams at St. Paul’s, Children’s and Burnaby General.  It continued long into the toddler years with home visits, hospital visits, study participation, and teams of medical personnel from speech and language, physio, extra hearing and eye tests.  This was our normal.

Our normal continues.

One of them has a habit of centering his viruses in his abdominal lymph nodes, so it presents like appendicitis and triggers an E.R. visit.

The other one, as evidenced on this blog, has successfully come out the other side of a Celiac diagnosis, complete with multiple E.R. trips and a resulting endoscopy.

We are familiar with the E.R. now in three separate cities.   I know where they keep the warm blankies.  (This is valuable knowledge when you are upwards of 6+ hours in the E.R.)

Flash back to a week ago, and the younger one was innocuously riding bikes with a neighbourhood buddy right outside our house.  A proper summer activity. (not even high-impact!)   Until he took a header over his handlebars and landed on his face.  Out cold on the pavement, I rushed him to our local E.R., and we were admitted immediately to a bed.  Doctors came, the Pediatrician was called, the shoulder was x-rayed, and we were told we would have to spend the night under observation, only we had to be observed at Royal Columbian, as our E.R. didn’t have a kids unit.

We were introduced to Lightning and Mader, our Paramedics that would escort us to Royal Columbian.  (Special shout out to paramedics, for truly performing an incredible job under extraordinary circumstances on a daily basis!!!)  We got an ambulance ride, bypassed the E.R. and were escorted to our bed in the Pediatric unit for the night.

(I was not told until the morning that one of the concerns was a brain bleed, and for once, I am grateful for not having known.  I likely would have slept even less with that knowledge.)

We woke to the good news that it was a mild concussion, with no brain bleed, and we would likely be better within the next couple of weeks.  We were given copious amounts of information to transition back to normal activities, and continue to strictly forbid any screens until better.

And thankfully, I can report that he is on the mend and feeling much better day over day.  We have been a very quiet household for the last week, which has come as a bit of a blessing.  He has done a deep dive into his LEGO and is creating magical machines, without the help of a screen.  There is no music, no radio, no TV. (which has been lovely).

And so we continue, until the next trip to the E.R. with my Hospital Kids!