Jeyanth goes bump
Posted on July 28th, 2008 by Sureka, when Jeyanth was old, and Maya wasThe kindy teacher described it as one of those things that you feel you’re watching in slow motion and yet are powerless to stop.
Jeyanth is running on the grass in the playground, completely unencumbered, no other children near him. The ground is sloping slightly away from him, and suddenly he’s falling, apparently tripping on his own feet. He’s in a superman like dive, arms reaching out to catch himself. But he doesn’t catch himself. Instead his head comes into contact with the corner of a table.
The teacher said that he didn’t cry straight away. In fact, he asked if the table was all right. Then the cut on his forehead started bleeding copiously and Jeyanth was very very sad.
I had just arrived home around lunchtime after a board meeting, the day after we’d moved house. Chris had also just got back from a lecture. We were both about to get stuck into boxes when we got the call. By the time we got to kindy, the teachers had done excellent first aid and had Jeyanth in a good firm bandage and he was sitting on a lap having a cuddle, albeit sobbing. Since it was half an hour since the fall, the teachers had been monitoring his alertness and were able to reassure us that Jeyanth was able to speak clearly and had remained concious and coherent since the fall.
Following a tip from the kindy teachers, we took Jeyanth to the local medical centre rather than the hospital. Though its not a circumstance that I’d recommend to anyone, coming in with a small child with a head injury will get you seen absolutely instantly.
A quick inspection under the bandage by the nurse led to the doctor being summoned immediately. We laid Jeyanth down on a treatment bed and the nurse wrapped him up tightly in a warm blanket and asked that we sat on either side of him. All the while she was telling us, in a kind and comforting banter, that this happened all the time, and that they’d had a very similar one just the day before and that we’d better get used to the fact that little boys were just prone to this sort of thing.
The doctor explained to us exactly what he was proposing to do; he was going to give Jeyanth local anaesthetic around the wound, then sew up the cut (which was about 2-3cm long) and then bandage it up tight. We had to comfort him while he did the work, then take him home and watch him closely for any signs on concussion. If he showed any signs we were to whip him to hospital straight away, else, we were to come back in two days to change the dressing and then again in a week to have the stitches out. He asked if he had our permission to do this, and then asked if we would be OK to go through the procedure without getting upset. I guess he has just as many problems with hysterical parents as he does with crying children.
So Chris and I sat on either side of Jeyanth while the procedure was carried out. Initially J was scared by not knowing what was happening, and we had to explain to him exactly what the doctor was doing at each stage. Once the stitching started, the pain was duller, but Jeyanth was obviously distressed by the feeling. So we distracted him by asking him to tell us about the characters from the Cars movie, which is his favourite subject.
It is typical of Jeyanth that even when in considerable pain, his howls were very articulate: “I don’t want them to do the stitches! Why can’t they just put a band-aid on it and send me home?”. And when suitably distracted by conversation, he still managed a tone of exasperation when I claimed not to remember the name of McQueen’s friend, the tow-truck.
I don’t think I realised how much I myself was in a state of shock, until Jeyanth sat up (local anaesthetic now fully in effect) after the procedure to receive his due share of jelly beans and I suddenly felt light headed and quaky at the knees. I was glad I was sitting down.
We’re glad to report that Jeyanth has been recovering very well since Tuesday (22/7) when it all happened. He needed some paracetamol the first evening, but has since claimed to be in no pain at all. His massive bandage was removed on Thursday (which hurt), his stitches were proclaimed to be healing cleanly and he now has only a small band-aid. The doctor warned us that he might get bruising around the head and eye, but fortunately this hasn’t eventuated. He’s back to all the leaping and bounding and jumping and running (much to his mother’s apprehension). We keep reminding him that its really important that he doesn’t do anything that might bump his head or make the stitches bleed, but he seems to forget. Which I suppose is a good thing really.
It never occurred to me before that I should end each day with a prayer of thanks that my children survived unhurt, but I think I shall now.
