What a crazy weekend!

Our weekend started with a trip to the hospital because of Bianca's hip pain and we ended our weekend (today was a public holiday in Auckland) with another trip to the hospital. The song that comes to mind is that children's song where you sing "one little monkey jumping on the bed (although technically it was a couch, and technically no jumping), one fell down and bumped his head, took him to the doctor, the doctor said, no more jumping on the bed" or something to that effect. Can't think quite straight as it is now past 11pm and time for bed.

Around 6:10pm Caitlyn was sitting on the 2 seater couch we have in our lounge area. I was sitting on the 1 seater next to her. I wasn't looking towards her, but I assume she was trying to climb over the side towards me or something (not quite sure), but next thing she tumbled head down to the ground and bumped it on the plastic rocking horse before landing on the ground. And she screamed! She screamed so much that she was breathing out, but not in and so next moment she went completely quiet and then passed out in Terence's arms for all of maybe 10 seconds. She woke up and screamed some more and then just became quite pale and quiet and so we decided we needed to go to North Shore hospital - the one closest to us.

The whole way there she was awake, but really quiet, pale and looking out the window. When we got to the hospital and announced our arrival at reception she started crying again and then from there perked up again. And so we waited, and waited, and waited with Wiggles on the TV to entertain the other little boy, with Caitlyn climbing on the chair, and down again, then on the cot, then down again, then to the books and back again, over and over and over.

And of course freaking out when the nurses just look in her direction. It was quite a drama trying to put the little gadget on her finger or foot to measure her heart rate and oxygen levels (they are not painful, but she freaked out when they tried to put it on her finger and of course then we had to hold her arm / foot down which freaked her out even more).

By 9:23pm we still haven't seen a doctor, still had no further feedback apart from when we checked an hour or two prior to that and the nurses informed us that Caitlyn would be next on the list and so Terence was going to tell them that we planned to leave and take Caitlyn to Starship and only then did we finally see the doctor on call (afterwards it turned out that this doctor clicked on Caitlyn's name around 9:06pm, but we didn't see her until Terence started letting them know that we thought it was better to leave and go somewhere else).

It was only then that she told us that they like to observe patients for 4 hours following a head injury (thanks for letting us know this upon arrival...). Of course Caitlyn started freaking out at the mere sight of this doctor and the doctor tried looking into her eyes, no such luck. And after a brief physical exam (probably to make sure we are not some of the horrible child-abusing parents out there) she decided that she was prepared to discharge us and that whilst we waited for the discharge note that we could let Caitlyn walk / run around and she would observe from a distance. Finally by 10pm we were able to leave and Caitlyn happily said "bye!" to the doctor as we walked towards the door.

It is going to be a long night because we are meant to wake her up a couple of times tonight to make sure there are no worries, she is able to wake up okay and so on, so I imagine we will all be pretty tired tomorrow.

I don't foresee any problems though because the distance that she fell was not that high and she did land on carpet and really since arrival at the hospital she was her old self apart from being way overtired and being in the strange environment. Yes it was a fall, but the doctor did indicate that the front part of the head is the strongest part and as such it is considered to be a minor head injury. So fingers crossed for no more "excitement"! I haven't had such a big fright in a very long time especially when Caitlyn passed out, that was a bit scary. But all seems well now again.

And on a final note, thank goodness we live in New Zealand and not South Africa. In our hurry to leave for the hospital we accidentally left our kitchen / dining room sliding door wide open with our washing on drying racks outside and returned 4 hours later without any worries.