This Cat Does Not Meow...

Aunt Pam is very cuddly

Dr. Hirner filling out the chart on her patient, Henry Alligator

Sophia and her entourage

So, we had a very full day yesterday...Let me preface the rest of this by saying that Sophia is fine, has been home for 24 hours, and did not get admitted BUT she did suffer from a very traumatic coincidence. Read on for the full story!

Yesterday morning Sophia and I went to a friends for a morning play date. We frequent this house often and play with these kids every day, so no one was worried when they went to play in a room by themselves. Well, as it turns out, and as you may imagine...Sophia got hurt. No one, except two 4 year-olds saw what happened. It was said that Sophia landed on her head, hit the floor and nothing else, and she did seem to be fine, so I really wasn't too worried. We left shortly there after and headed home for a nap. In the meantime, I had recruited mom to help me get ready for a big Easter brunch that Charlie and I are hosting tomorrow morning. Upon awakening from her nap, Sophia started acting very funny. She was crying, fussy, clingy, dizzy, and not making much sense at all. Both mom and I were concerned so I called the Ped. and headed to the ER. I had now convinced myself that she had a concussion and went flying down the interstate at speeds much too high!

The doctor, whom we finally met, after couple hours already, checked her out and discovered that she had a pretty yucky ear infection in her left ear. Ah-ha...this could be the source of the dizziness and crying. But, because we couldn't be sure and because we found a fairly sizable knot on the right side of her head, the doctor ordered a CT Scan to be sure. By this time Charlie had arrived and mom moved out to the waiting room where, by herself she was left with nothing to do but worry and fret. So...she called Stacy and Stacy called Pam and now they all waited and fretted together. It is a known fact that Joneses never go to the hospital alone! Safety in numbers, I suppose! The CT was the worst! I'll spare you the gory details, but it took absolutely forever! The actual scans they needed took exactly 32 seconds, calming her down, strapping her to the bed, and preparing for this 32 seconds, took uh...about 45 minutes! And, because I'm pregnant I was not able to stay in the room with her, and although Charlie was allowed and did a fantastic job, it was hard for her to see me disappear again and again. I will say, however, that the technician and child advocate were amazing. They really tried (and succeeded) to do everything they could so that we did not have to sedate Sophia. Thankfully it worked b/c that would have added on at least another 2 hours to our stay, plus it would have pumped Sophia full of more drugs and me full of more worry. We then had to hurry up and wait for some chest x-rays because Sophia does have a nasty cough that the doc noticed right away! After that was done is was wait, wait, wait on the doctor to return.

In the end, both scans came back normal and we were free to leave, after 5 hours of agony. It was a nasty coincidence that she hit her head the same day her ear infection decided to exhibit sings, in the end it was surely the right move to take her in, but it caused a lot of worry and stress for all of us! But the fun really didn't end there because...even though the CT was normal, we still had to treat her for a head injury, just in case. So we had to wake Sophia every 2 hours all through the night. I will admit that this went much more smoothly than I had anticipated and she was so dog-gone tired that she thankfully fell immediately back to sleep each time and then slept until almost 9 am...yay! We are treating her for her ear infection and she's back on a normal nighttime routine. All four of us, Walter included, are looking forward to a long night of sleep! I am so thankful that she is okay. I really had some moments yesterday where I felt sheer panic and terror. I am beginning to understand the dread my mother felt every time one of us was in the ER (and let me tell you it was pretty often! LOL!) and I feel just awful! I know that part of being a parent is visiting the hospital, but this is our 3rd (and scariest) ER visit since she turned a year and I'm over it!!!!