SM: Hi. Are you getting close to home?The Scout Master is pretty calm most of the time. Not a lot rattles him. Sometimes he overcompensates for my easily excitable personality. It was hard to tell from his tone whether he was downplaying this or if it really was just a minor fall. I drove home pretty quickly to see what the words "accident" and "coherent" actually meant.
Me: Yep. Why?
SM: Everything's ok...but you might not want to stop anywhere.(ugh...that's never something you want to hear when you only have 50% of your children with you)
SM: June had a little accident on the ripstick. She hit her head but she's coherent.(not at all comforting...)
When I walked into the bathroom, June was crying and covered in blood, but definitely coherent. She had a gash on the right side of her head that was bleeding heavily, a huge cut on her left knee, and another one on her right elbow. Because of the head injury, we decided to take her to the ER just to make sure she was ok. On the way out the door, I noticed that nearly all the skin on her right shoulder was gone! (ugh...my poor little thing)
Here's what happened...she was with a friend, riding their ripsticks on the sidewalk near the school, and came down the hill too fast. She overcompensated, lost control, jumped off, rolled, and hit her head on the curb. And from what she looked like, apparently several other parts of her body hit the sidewalk and the road along the way.
About 20 minutes after getting to the ER, I started receiving texts. First from neighbors (Do you need anything? How is she?) and then from Hawaii (Who's in the ER?) That's when I knew that someone had posted something on FB. (We found out later it was TCD "My dad just took my sister to the ER covered in blood. Skateboards are bad!" Nice...) But you know what? After getting over the initial shock that she had jumped on FB to announce that, I actually was really grateful for technology. It was really comforting to have so many people send sweet messages to June. She loved it, too.
After 3 hours in the ER, they determined that she didn't have a concussion and she didn't need any stitches. (Phew! Huge relief.) She came home heavily bandaged and loaded up with Tylenol, but
Here's the thing about June...she is amazingly strong and resilient. After so many hours in the ER with all those other people who were "really hurt" and some who were complaining loudly, she decided she was ready to get the heck out of that place. She had long since stopped crying and was anxious to get home. She didn't complain the rest of the night. And she insisted she was going to school the next day. (Something about a Valentine's Dance...) I secretly had no intention of letting her go to school, so I didn't bother to wake her up at her usual 6:30am with the other kids. But at 7:00am didn't she walk out of her bedroom, dressed in a beautiful dress with her hair fixed (complete with four lovely giant bandages as accessories!) I stopped by the school to check on her right after lunch just to make sure she was hanging in there...and of course, she was! She had a class party, went to the dance, and then came home after school and jumped back on...yep...the ripstick! (Serious???)
2/13/12 UPDATE: More proof of this totally amazing girl's resilience...on Saturday, June woke up with a completely swollen right eye and by bedtime, BOTH eyes and the bridge of her nose were so swollen that she was barely recognizable.
(think Avatar...only not blue and sparkly...)
But did she miss the Eagle Court of Honor that night? No way! And did she want to stay home from church on Sunday morning? The thought didn't even cross her mind. She got up for school this morning, still swollen, but with complete confidence that it was going to be a great day. Oh, how I love this girl! I am so proud of her awesome positive attitude and the determination that goes with it!
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