The past few days

The past few days have been best summed up as our worst nightmare. It has been a trial that neither Drew nor I ever wanted to experience. We are praising God that we are on the other side but continue to fear Him and know that He is good.


I'm going to do my best to recall the past few days here in this post:


Tuesday morning, Kerrington, Kellan, and I went to Publix to pick up a few snack items to have for our car ride up to Cincinnati (we were leaving Wednesday evening). There were no car carts available (K calls them 'choo choos') so I just put Kerrington in the back of the buggy to avoid a meltdown. When we got to the check out, she was helping me unload our groceries on to the belt. She grabbed a box of Ritz crackers and went to put them on the belt. She reached too far over the end of the buggy and fell. At that time, I tried to reach and grab her, but because I had Kellan in the Baby Bjorn, I couldn't reach far enough. She flipped over the end, hit the ground with her head, and landed on her back. She immediately started crying.


My first instinct (all my medical knowledge went right out the window) was to scoop her up and comfort her. That's exactly what I did. At that time, two or three Publix employees rushed over and began helping us out. They ran and got Kerrington ice, cookies, a band aid ( she cried out that she needed a band aid), coloring books, and balloons. They were incredibly sweet and helped us finish checking out and walked us out to the car.


Once we got out to the car I knew that I was going to have to take her to the E.R.. It just didn't look like a good fall. I called Drew and let him know and he was leaving work to meet us there. K eventually calmed down, but was trying to fall asleep. She also vomited on the way there. I was starting to panic.


We got to the hospital and they got us back pretty quickly and gave K an x-ray. The doctor read the x-ray, said it looked normal. They diagnosed Kerrington with a closed head injury, said that she might throw up a couple more times today, but that would be normal, and told us we could go home. We were relieved, and happy to be leaving the hospital.



Here is K after we left the hospital, she was plum tuckered out.


We got home and gave her some lunch to eat and tried to lay down with her a bit more.

She just looks pitiful in this picture...she was mopey and had a nice goose egg forming on her head.

Around 4pm Tuesday evening, she seemed to perk up and began to act like the Kerrington we know. We went over to my parents, ate dinner, and hung out until it was time to take the kids home and put them to bed.

Here is Kerrington Tuesday evening, acting like her goofy self!

She fell asleep around 8:45 that evening, but before she fell asleep, she vomited. We weren't to alarmed at this point because we were told that she might do this. About 45 minutes to an hour later she vomited again. This happened 1 or 2 more times and we were not very concerned. We called our (amazing) pediatrician and he told us that we should probably get back to the hospital to get a CT scan. We got Kerrington in the car, dropped Kellan off at a friend's house and headed back to the hospital around 1am.

Here is Kerrington in the car on the way to the hospital.

Once at the hospital, they gave Kerrington some Zofran for nausea, and got the CT scan. The doctor came by and told us the scan was normal and that she was fine to go home. We were relieved and happy to be going back home. We left the hospital and got home around 4:30am. We all tried to get some sleep.

Around 6:30 Kerrington woke up and vomited. At 7:15, Drew got a phone call from the doctor that had read her CT scan. He told him that the scan was read wrong and we needed to get back to the hospital as soon as we could to have some more testing done.

At this point we were completely frazzled. We went from thinking that our baby was just fine, to not knowing what was wrong with our baby girl. We packed up the kids and headed back to the hospital (for the 3rd time). Once there, the doctor (a new one) told us he wanted to have another x-ray done to make sure she didn't have any other broken bones from the fall and he was going to assign us to the Trauma Team. The x-rays were completed and we were taken over to the pediatric E.R.. There, they drew some blood and started an IV and gave Kerrington a bolus of IV fluid. Our E.R. nurse told us we were waiting on a consult from a neurosurgeon, but we would be admitted to the Pediatric floor for observation.

Here is Kerrington after we got up to our room. Taking a nap with her daddy.

The rest of Wednesday evening was pretty uneventful. We were able to start giving Kerrington some clear liquids. She was pretty happy about that! She had about 3-4 Popsicles while we were there. Late Wednesday evening we realized that she hadn't used the potty since early that morning. We tried to get her to go, but she didn't want to go and actually had quite the melt down when we tried to get her to go. She became pretty inconsolable, and upset. She finally (my strong willed child) decided to go potty. When she went, she peed 300mls! That is a huge amount for her little bladder to hold, no wonder she was uncomfortable! After that fiasco, she got a bath with her brother.

K was able to eat some grilled cheese around 7pm and did really well. We were blessed to all be able to stay in the hospital Wednesday night. I figured that I would probably have to go home with Kellan because he is still breastfeeding, but the room we stayed in had a hospital bed and a crib in it. Our nurse was okay with Kellan staying so he slept in the crib. Drew and I switched back and forth all night sleeping in bed with Kerrington.

Around 3 am, Kerrington was having some fevers. The nurse had to draw a blood culture and CBC to rule out infection. She handled it really well and fell back asleep pretty quickly afterwards.

Here Kerrington is Thursday morning, happy, and feeling much better!

Thursday morning rolled around and we were still waiting to see the neurosurgeon. We ate breakfast and had a few visitors. It was great to have visitors because it made the morning go by a bit quicker. A little before lunch time, a neurosurgeon stopped by and explained everything to us. He told us that Kerrington did in fact have a small fracture near the suture line where her frontal bones fuse. It extended near her right eye. He was very optimistic that it would heal just fine and he was okay with her going home to normal activity. He advised that she shouldn't be climbing and jumping though (ha!). He did want us to come back in 4 weeks to insure that he fracture healed properly. Unfortunately, we couldn't leave until the admitting team signed off on our papers.

The rest of the afternoon was smooth sailing. Kerrington was able to get off the IV fluids and we went down to the play room.

Here Kerrington is painting a picture.

We even took some medical toys back to the room and she was giving Elmo shots....

and listening to her brother with a stethoscope.

I tried to get a picture of her eye. It was slightly swollen, and she was starting to get a black eye.

Finally, around 3:30, the team of doctors that admitted us signed off on all our papers and we were cleared to go home. We left the hospital, and got home around 4. We couldn't have been more thankful and happy to be in our own home.

Drew and I were so overwhelmed at all the love, support and prayers that were flooded our way. We were talking about all the people that were praying for us and were just amazed. My friends, the power of prayer is absolutely incredible. I believe that our Lord and Savior heard all the cries on our little girl's behalf. Thank you to all of you who prayed for us. We felt those prayers.

Thank you Jesus for protection of our little girl while she was going through this. Thank you for guiding the doctors and nurses. Thank you for reminding me to pray during the early hours of the night when I couldn't sleep and began to worry about my baby. Thank you for blessing us with friends and family who provided us with our every need during this crisis. You are good.