The Longest Day

I spent most of the day Saturday in the emergency room. But don't panic, everything is fine. Here's what happened.

Gary woke me up on Saturday morning with these words, "Better get up honey, I think Weifu has a concussion. He's in the bathroom now, throwing up".

I jumped out of bed and ran to check on him, trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes. He was indeed throwing up, and had a dazed look in his little eyes. He had fallen out of the top bunk onto his head. I panicked and called 911, slipping into my clothes while I talked with them. In just a few minutes I heard sirens blaring and I think there were 5 or 6 men in the house. A fire truck and an ambulance were parked out front with flashing lights. I'm sure my neighbors were thinking something terrible had happened.

Gary fled to the office because he's a wimp at dealing with any hurts the kids have and I was left floundering on my own to try to explain to these guys what happened. Weifu was sitting, a little bit dazed in the living room. Very quiet and subdued, much out of character for him. He is usually bouncing off the walls. He insisted that the felt fine, but his head was just hurting.

The paramedics took this vitals and said he was ok. And of course they were asking me all about the accident. I think they became suspicious when I didn't know anything so they asked to see the bunk beds. Luckily Weilong went with us and took over. He had seen the whole thing and explained it to us.

Weifu was making his bed. He perched on the foot of the bed and pulled the quilt very hard to get all the wrinkles out. And he lost his balance and fell backwards off the foot of the top bunk. Weilong said his head hit the closet door first and that he slid to the floor with his feet in the air.

The paramedics offered to take Weifu to the hospital for us, but he insisted he was fine and didn't need to go, and since there was no blood or anything we all decided he would be fine. And the medics left.

Weifu now told me he felt funny and his head was hurting real bad. And I learned that the accident had happened an hour before the started throwing up, and that he had laid curled up in a fetal position on the floor for that hour. WHY didn't they tell me this while the medics were in our house??

I tried to call our doctor, but the office was closed. So, I called 911 again, and they again offered to drive us to the hospital but could not give me any advice over the phone. I declined the ride in the ambulance and bundled Weifu quickly up and drive as quickly as possible to the hospital. He threw up at home before we left, and again as we entered the emergency room.

Would you believe it took 3 hours before we were seen by a doctor??? A nurse did check Weifu out and didn't see anything that alarmed her. And once again Weifu had to throw up. This time he was in the mens room so long that I went in after him. He was on his knees hugging the nasty old toilet in the mens room, and the vomit was just water since he had not eaten or drunk anything all day. I helped him wash up, and held my tongue about his putting his hands and face on the nasty toilet, not to mention his knees on the floor and his whole front in contact with the front of the toilet. Germ alerts were screaming in my head, but I just had to ignore them.

After this episode they moved us to an exam room and gave Weifu something to keep him from vomiting. It worked because he settled down and started feeling better. His head was still hurting, but the pain was subsiding. But this time about 5 hours has passed since the accident. I had given him an ibuprophen earlier, but he threw it up. Finally they did a CAT scan and said it looked normal, thank God. They gave him a popsicle and when he was able to keep that down they let us go home. The temperature had dropped outside and we almost froze as we hurried to the parking garage. The wind was sustained at 30 mph, with gusts to 40.

We were so glad to get back home where we could be comfortable. Weifu ate a bowl of chicken noodle soup and said he felt better. His head was sore as was his right shoulder, and he said he felt dizzy when he turned his head or shook it.

The doctor told me to keep Weifu quiet for a day or two, and no sports activities for 2 weeks. He did have a concussion, but they said he will be fine. I'm so thankful for that. I had horrible visions of spending the holidays with him in the hospital, and believe me that's not my idea of a Merry Christmas.

Gary and I left the kids with our oldest son and went out to do a last bit of shopping. I was very tired when we got home, and it was bedtime. I would have forgotten to give Weilong his shot if he hadn't reminded me.

Today we had a wonderful normal Sunday. Our church service was exceptional.

We're all looking forward to tomorrow. There will be last minute gift wrapping, and preparations will begin for Christmas dinner. The girls will love helping me. Then we'll all go to church for a beautiful candle light service. We always want to remember that Christmas is the birthday of our precious Savior, God's gift to us. The gifts we give to each other are nice, but the real gift is Jesus.

I'll have a big pot of Paula Deen's Chicken Poblano soup in my crock pot keeping hot, and we'll have a wonderful meal with all six of our children when we get home from Church. We'll talk and enjoy being together on this very special night. The kids will be so excited that they will have a hard time falling asleep. They'll stay up for hours and Gary and I will probably fall asleep before they do. But sometime during this special night, Santa will make his much anticipated delivery to our house.

And the only witnesses to this delivery will be the first grade class frogs that Weilong is babysitting for during the Christmas break, all settled into a very special place on a desk pulled up close to our Christmas tree, in their own little aquarium. These five frogs may be the only frogs in history to have such a privileged view of Santa at work. And the cats will be sitting beneath the tree, gazing longingly at the frogs in their safe aquarium haven. Talking about visions of sugar plums!