I took Caitie to the newfound park on March 11th. There weren't any kids there this time, probably because it was later in the day than we usually go. Caitie went on the swing, climbed and went down the slides. Since there weren't any kids there this time, I went ahead and chased her as she asked me to. I'm the grown-up, right? At least I thought I was, yet here I was 'chasing her', which meant she was running fast and then trying to climb to get to the curvy slide, which is continuing the chase. Just as I asked her to slow down and be careful, she fell. Talk about panicking! I asked if she was all right and then checked the area out, trying to make sure her head hadn't hit anything hard or sharp. It looked like she just hit the sand, but there are bars connecting the ladder to the landing that leads to the curvy slide, and I wasn't sure if her head may have hit that. She was crying by this time, and was pretty upset, understandably. I then noticed blood on her lip. That really scared me. I asked her to open her mouth, which she hesitated doing, but I then demanded she open it and noticed more blood. That was it... we were off to the doctor's office. I would have headed to the ER, but it would probably have taken longer to be seen there than calling to make a same-day appointment for her to be seen at her doctor's office. So I called Michael and asked him to make an appointment for her; he had access to the number. He called me back to let me know that her appointment was for 3:40pm, it was around 2pm that she fell. I thought if I went in before her appointment time they might see her sooner; I was lucky they saw her at all... read on. Once I had her in the truck and on the way there, she seemed fine, but then after a few minutes on the freeway, I noticed her nodding off. This really scared me; I didn't want her going to sleep or passing out before seeing the doctor since I didn't know if she had a concussion or not. I kept having to talk loud to keep her awake. When we got to the doctor's office, it was packed. I stood in line to sign in, and waited to do the usual, which is answer their questions about same/new insurance, etc., but they never did ask and I decided to sit down in the well-kid section to wait and be called back. Caitie seemed fine by this time, and played some in the waiting area. But over time, and almost everyone being called back, even the people that came in after us, and it being past her appointment time, I decided to ask the people at the front desk why we hadn't been called back yet. The lady that had the answer was sitting back with her foot up talking on the phone, which seemed like a personal call, but I'm not sure. The girl asking where Caitie's chart was, kept asking the girl, but she wouldn't answer since she was on the phone. The other girl finally found her chart; the girl on the phone had misplaced it, so she wasn't in line to be seen at all. Talk about frustration! But I kept my cool... just barely. When Caitie was finally seen, the doctor's assistant checked her over, and wanted to see inside Caitie's mouth, but Caitie wouldn't let her... she just wouldn't budge; she actually gritted her teeth. (so much for taking her to the dentist anytime soon. ha) The assistant finally had to use a tongue depressor to pry her mouth open and take a look around. She noticed the inner upper lip area having a slight tear; this is what was causing all the bleeding. She said it wasn't serious and that it would heal on its own. She said that kind of injury can cause a lot of bleeding, and that's what all the blood was from. When she said it wasn't serious, I finally let out a sigh of relief. But I wanted to make sure she didn't have a concussion, of which the assistant assured me she didn't. I asked her when it's best to bring her in after these kind of mishaps on playground equipment, because this could happen again, kids are carefree and rowdy on playgrounds (i didn't mention that i was the 'kid' chasing her at the time. ha), so wanted to know if it's best to bring her in each time it might happen; she said it would be up to me, but she did give me a paper explaining what to look for in head injuries, etc. Talk about a stressful day! We haven't been back to the playground since, but not because she doesn't want to go, in fact, as soon as we left the doctor's office Caitie asked if we could go back to the playground, of which I gave her a look that pretty much told her that we weren't heading back there. ha I plan to take her back to the park sometime this week; I think I'm up for it again... not sure. There's no more 'catch me if you can' game, I can tell you that!
Yep, it's official now... I am the park mom from heckaroonies. haHere are some pics from that day...
Having fun on the swings. She likes to go high.
Here is the place she fell from. She was climbing up to the landing that leads to the curvy slide. She did ok this time.
Here is the curvy slide.
Here is a pic I took right before she fell. She was on the top rung of the ladder and trying to get onto the landing; she was doing this while playing the 'catch me if you can' game, of which I was a part of, I'm ashamed to say. Even though I warned her and asked her to slow down, I shouldn't have been 'chasing her', which gets her excited; that could have caused her misstep that caused her to fall. As you can see in this pic, it doesn't look too far down to the ground from the landing, but her falling at all and hitting her head on the ground is scary, no matter the height of the fall.
