Counting Down--WARNING: Graphic pictures below

11 days until school starts.  Eleven!    Seriously, I am so  giddy I might just pee my pants  ready.   I am done with the endless days of bickering, and the complaints of  "Moooom, I'm bored"!   Enough already.

Honestly though, it has been a pretty good summer, especially when I think back to last summer when I was stuck in a major depression and thought that my life was over because of Faith's Down syndrome diagnosis.   I couldn't even begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Nor could I see the joy that was to come.   So, yes, this has been a delightful summer, to say the least!

That said, I am still ready for school to start.   I mean, I'm not crazy.  Or maybe I am. Whatever.

Annnnyway, moving on...

Last weekend, I had enough excitement to last me a lifetime.  Okay, so it was more fear and anxiety than excitement, but enough all the same.    At about 8:30pm, Caleb came bursting through the front door yelling that Josh was hurt.   Well, truth be told, somebody seems to always be getting hurt around here, so my mom-radar didn't exactly go crazy...until, Caleb mentioned the words head, passed out, and blood.  THAT sent me running down the street with no shoes and no bra. Thankfully, I at least had clothes on.

Hubby and I finally got to Josh as he was being held up by a couple of other kids.  He had blood running down his face and he looked pretty bad.  Confused and a little tilted to the side.   I tried to decipher what had happened through the chattering of excited little voices...but all I got out of it was that Josh was hit in the head somehow by a bike.    

We got Josh home and into the bathroom to take a look...

Needless to say, I loaded Josh up in the car and off we went to the ER.   On the way there, he was very dazed and shaking like a leaf.   After taking one look at his head, Josh was ushered back to a room rather quickly.

The nurse came in, assessed Josh's wound, cleaned him up and shortly after, the doctor arrived.

The doctor, Dr. Maul ( I did think that name was kinda funny at the time) said that Josh would need to have quite a few staples in his head to close the wound, but he would need a CT scan first to rule out any   serious injury to his brain, as if the jagged hole in his head wasn't enough.

Here he is just getting ready to go into the CT machine...he was so scared!

This was all I got to see of the CT...so I sat there worrying myself sick for 2 whole minutes.

After returning from the CT room,  things started happening in a bit of a frenzy.   Dr. Maul came in, sat down and told me that Josh's CT scan showed that he had a linear fracture of his skull and that he also had a brain bleed, called a subdural hematoma.  With that, the room started spinning and I was speechless.    The doc said that Josh would have to be admitted to the hospital, but that he would first have to be transferred to a trauma hospital and be admitted into the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit under the care of a pediatric neurosurgeon.

All I could do was hold Josh's hand in mine, and place the other hand over his heart, which was beating so quickly I could feel it.    I looked Dr. Maul directly in the eye and practically begged him to tell me that Josh was going to be okay.  He told me that yes, Josh would be okay, but that he had a significant closed head trauma and had to be monitored closely for any changes that might occur.

Be still my heart.  I was so scared.  Scared for my boy, but I kept that fear under wraps and kept the air light by joking with Josh and laughing about the doctor saying that Josh had broken his "brain bucket".

Anyway, after the news was delivered, the doctor said that he had originally wanted to staple Josh's wound, but in light of his fracture and that he would need another CT scan in the morning, he had to just suture the wound.

Dr. Maul did an awesome job, don't you think?

So, now that Josh's head is all pieced back together, off we go in the ambulance.

Not too much happened once we were settled into the PICU.  Josh's nurse did very frequent 'neuro checks' to make sure he was doing okay.  

Funny thing was, I didn't even notice that they didn't change him out of his bloody clothes until the next morning.   Once they got him into bed, he wasn't allowed to move much.  

It was a long night.  Neither one of us slept a whole lot.  I was plagued with worry.  Josh was kept up by the frequent checks and some anxiety, I'm sure.   Not to mention that he was taken down to CT at 4:30 am!

I did a lot of clock watching...

Thankfully though, a sweet surprise came to cheer Josh up!

By the late afternoon, the neurosurgeon came in and said that Josh's second CT scan looked the same as the first, so he could go home.   Yes, there was a fracture, but the brain bleed had not gotten any worse and he didn't expect it to.    Before he left the room, the doc got right in Josh's face and told him that he MUST wear a helmet ANY TIME he is on wheels.  He also said that if Josh were to hit his head again in the next couple of months, it could kill him.   Certainly not something I wanted to hear.

Eleven more days.  Eleven more days.  Eleven more days...