The One Where The Manchild Dives For The Ball…And Missed

You know how you wake up in the morning to have your regular ol’ day…you are pretty happy that the humidity is low so YES! It’s a Good-Hair-Day-Tuesday.  You’re feeling right good about yourself and your future, life is good, heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it’s off-to-work-you-go?  It’s a productive morning, get lots done and you’re thinking “So, what will I do at lunchtime?” …..

Then you get a phone call telling you your kid has split his head open in PE class. You call the school and are told that 911 has been called, your kid is bleeding oh and be sure you get a plastic surgeon to do his sutures?  So much for a leisurely lunch time, eh?I’ve never had one of those kinds of phone calls before until today.

  Now, I’ve had kids get stitched up, (one with an unfortunate encounter with a merry go round, the other an encounter with bare feet and a rake) broken bones, (big toe and wrist) the Vapors, an ambulance ride, handed my not-yet-one year old-baby to a stranger to put him to sleep to put tubes in his ears, had the same baby about a year later, severely dehydrated, suffering from Rotavirus, in the hospital hooked up to IV’s for three days, rocked and held a feverish little one (and not so little) more times than I could possibly remember, sat in the bathroom in the middle of the night with the shower running, letting the steam clear a croupy cough, my 2 year old drink bleach, saw one of my kids nearly drown at 3 years old, an ER trip thinking one had appendicitis, been thrown up on, pooped on , peed on, all those things more times than I could begin to remember.  January 2 I will have been a parent 17 years.  I’ve done a lotta stuff, like every other parent has.

Something about hearing the numbers “911″ in relation to your child, who is about 25 minutes away makes your heart just stop for a second.  Mine sure did today.  I waited at Hendersonville Hospital for a good 25 minutes before the ambulance arrived with the Manchild in tow.  I wasn’t even sure if they were bringing him there because the ER people hadn’t gotten a call, the office lady at Station Camp didn’t know if they took him there or to Sumner Regional.

Finally, the ambulance pulls up and I go over to the back, nervous, not totally knowing what I’m gonna see, kinda on the verge of tears, in total Talk-To-Jesus-Out-Loud mode…and they pull the Manchild out on the stretcher. 

Now, you gotta realize, I haven’t seen the Manchild wear anything except a black tshirt with some sort of band name on the front for probably two years and baggy blue jeans.  He had on his Gym shirt, which is gray and has his school name on the front and he had on shorts!  I forgot the boy had legs.  We also don’t live in the same house anymore.

So, he’s got on a totally different color than I’m accustomed to seeing, his head is wrapped in gauze, oxygen thingies up his nose, blood on him and I say something very motherly (and very sincere) like “Oh Tyler” and my firstborn child waves at me and says “Mom….I look like a retard.”

The Wellness Class (what happened to “Gym” or “PE?”) was playing “Flash Football.”  I don’t even know what that is.  A friend of mine asked me if that was when you run down the field and show your ass. I don’t know. I’m assuming it’s something akin to Flag Football.  They were inside the gym and Tyler went to dive for a catch and…well…he missed. 

He doesn’t remember the missed catch so that means he went to his Special, Happy Place for a moment.  He was pretty pale when he got to the hospital and he was chattering.  Tyler is a big talker but he’s usually very calm.  He was almost hyper.  I guess part of that was nerves, part of it mighta been a little shock…he was cracking me up though.

They ran him through the CAT scanner and that all came out fine.   A plastic surgeon looked at his boo boo and said that he narrowly missed hitting a major artery in his forehead as well as narrowly missed the muscle that controls the eyebrow movement.   4 cms with tissue and skull exposed.  Yee haw. The Manchild is fortunate all around and that is not lost on his Dad or myself. (There are more pictures on the Flickr over there but some are a little…ick so I wanted to be sensitive to my more sensitive readers)

 I got paper towels and washed his hands and face (first time he’s let me do anything for him like that since I can remember) and even though it was a crappy thing to have happen, I enjoyed getting to play Mommy to my big boy, even for just a minute.  (Enjoy is probably not the right word)   I couldn’t believe he wasn’t fighting me.  This boy likes to be independent.  I respect that and totally encourage him to take care of himself but it’s interesting how when your kid is sick or hurting. that mother instinct just kicks in.

The changes that have occurred in our family the last few weeks, the logistical changes, etc.  I don’t know…I’m glad he let me be Mom and do my job, even though when he first got in the room he said “Mom…I’m 16. I’m ok.”  After the EMT guy said something about how much he bled and that “that’s your Mom, man” it was ok for me to slip into that mode cause none of his buddies were around or nothing. 

All the stuff that’s gone on lately has been difficult for all of us.  It’s so important to me that Tyler knows that just because I’m at a different address (he chose to stay with his Dad) that I’m still his Mom and my love for him is no different.  I may not be a perfect mother, but, those kids are my heart.  Even big, tall and hairy like the Manchild is, he’s still my baby boy.

When we left the hospital, I hugged the Manchild and told him I loved him and was glad he was ok.  I decided when I moved that I have to start telling those kids every single day I love them.  They aren’t really warm/fuzzy/”I love you” saying kinda kids and I’m not so good at saying it but thats another thing about my life I’m trying to change.  Days like today are such a reminder that you don’t know from day to day, how your life can change in the drop of a football.

~ by sistasmiff on September 16, 2008.