So this last Saturday evening after dinner, Mark and David were horse playing (as usual) and Mark grabbed David from behind in a reverse “bear hug”. In an attempt to get free, David swung his arms up and back towards Mark and accidentally nailed Mark directly in his eye ball with his finger. Mark dropped onto our bed (they were in our room at the time of the incident) in agonizing pain, face down, with his feet still planted on the floor. Apparently, the pain from the strike to his eye sent him into shock and he lost consciousness, and therefore all control of his body. He went limp and collapsed off the bed, head first onto our hardwood floor.
Christy and I heard and felt the “boom” as Mark hit the floor. Normally, when we hear bodies hit the floor in our house (I say normally, because it happens all of the time), there is usually some sort of reaction- either someone laughing, crying, running, or screaming. This time, there was no sound whatsoever, which is why Christy decided to investigate the situation. Upon arriving on the scene, Christy sees Mark on his back on the floor, his arms and hands clenched in an awkward fashion, his mouth open and his eyes fixated on an invisible spot on the ceiling. He immediately started going into convulsions as Christy desperately tried to get him to snap out of the eerie state he was in, while screaming for me to come and call 911.
By the time I got to the room and began dialing 911, Mark’s body went limp as he completely lost consciousness. His eyes rolled back into his head and the contact lens in the eye that David hit flipped out and lay on his cheek.
Several seconds passed before Mark regained consciousness. I still had the phone in my hand waiting for 911 to pick up when Mark’s eyes finally re-opened. I immediately hung up the phone to assess Mark’s condition, thankful to see him move and hear him mutter words, even though they were words of agony. Mark was as pale as a corpse, sweating profusely from every pore in his body. He was conscious, but obviously suffering from traumatic brain injury. We knew we had to get him to the emergency room right away. At that moment, our phone rang. It was 911 calling us back to make sure we were okay. I guess I hung up the phone after someone had picked up. Knowing that we lived only blocks away from one of the best hospitals in the state in Huntington Hospital, I figured that by the time an ambulance came to our house, assessed the situation, and took him back to the hospital, I could have already had him at the emergency room- so I told the 911 operator that we had the situation under control.
As soon as we got Mark off the floor, he started to vomit violently, a clear sign of brain trauma. We let him empty his system as we got the car ready. Within 15 minutes of the incident, we were at the emergency room.
We waited for 45 minutes before we were taken to a room. all the while, Mark was feeling nauseous and suffering from intense head aches. On our way to the room, Mark let out another volley of puke. Once in the room, we were immediately seen by a physician’s assistant who quickly determined that Mark needed a CT scan to assess the severity of the brain injury and make sure that there was no bleeding or swelling. After an IV plug was put into Mark’s arm (for precautionary measures), we made a quick jaunt to the radiology department, and within thirty minutes we received the promising results from the CT scan- no bleeding, no swelling. They gave Mark some Morphine and Zofran (for nausea) and let him rest while they continued to monitor him for the next couple of hours. By 1:30 in the morning, they determined that Mark was well enough to recover at home, and we were released.
I have to say, as a parent, this was a very difficult experience for me, but I know it was harder for Christy because she was the one that saw him in the most frightening state. We should be pros at this by now with three boys and several trips to the ER for each one, but they sure don’t get any easier. Besides the horrifying memories seared into our minds, we also came away with some cool pictures of our son’s brain, which not everyone can show off on their blog…
