The only-perfect-food thing sucks, but we're dealing with that.
The all-clothing-and-shoes-feel-horrible thing sucks, but we're dealing with that, too.
Right now, the one that sucks rocks is the 'seeks-speed-without-regard-to-safety' thing.
Like, Miss M clotheslined herself at a full run, hard enough to throw her feet straight horizontal at neck height before she crashed backwards onto the driveway with the back of her head leading.
Granted, the 'I-must-use-my-fine-motor-skills-at-every-possible-opportunity' also sucks when it takes the form of tying ropes across the gate entrance, too. I had just seen that it had been done, and told Mr B to take it down, no, NOT later, NOW, when Miss M (who had carefully lifted it up and walked under it coming into the yard) gleefully took off running back out of the yard. Without ducking. Because speed is the only requirement. Safety isn't ever a concern.
Miss M had crashed and burned on the sidewalk, the driveway, and the yard about once an hour while she was outside (about four times, that is). Which, all in all, is a great ratio for her. It used to be once every 10-15 minutes.
Only, as her skill with running, jumping, and hopping (and leaping and racing and skidding and climbing) have increased, the severity of the crash-and-burns tend to get worse.
At least she didn't need stitches, that we can tell. And it doesn't seem like she cracked her skull, though I honestly don't know how that didn't happen. Hopefully, she didn't cause enough brain rattle to affect her reading skill (minor head trauma appears to be linked quite closely to dyslexia onset - you might need the genes for it first, but she may have those from me - and both me and my mom probably got our dyslexia following concussions).
Anyway, I did the protocol as required.
Check the injury. It was hard to see entirely, but it looked mainly like one scrape and one compression wound - red and bleeding but no gash per se - like a scrape, but through into the skin instead of across it. Small chunk of more-bleedy at the center, but not a gash. Not a stitches or staples situation. The smaller scrape below that (the driveway is root-heaved so it isn't a flat surface she hit) is completely minor in tissue damage, but had more swelling.
Rinse and ice. Rinsing meant wet cloths, and bloody water dripping onto the kitchen floor (she was horizontal in ep's arms, face down into his elbow, hair dripping on the floor). Ice meant screaming and more screaming - any pressure of course hurt like crazy, but ice is important, too. We kept it localized (one cube), because the weight of the entire bag of peas seemed to be worse.
Check for brain trauma/severity. Bilateral motion? Check. Coordinated movement in general? Check. Sleepy? Check. Yes, she was sleepy - but we've learned that sleepy is the normal physiological response (so is puking) to even quite minor head trauma (not that any is really 'minor'). It is if the sleepy continues past the 8 hour point that you really worry, or if they can't be woken. I also checked eye dilation (uniform response between the two), though I think I'd have known if it was bad enough to show up that way.
Manage the wound. Neosporin with pain relief gooping the hair up. Another pad on the top, held in place by ep.
Manage the mess. Hmm, staring at the bloody drips on the floor is probably not going to help the feeling of 'I'm okay'... clean those up. Attempt to clean the blood off my shirt. Failed on that one, but hey, the shirt is my gardening shirt, so it will just have a new badge of honor. Keep blood-tinged wet from dripping onto the dress (which Miss R had loaned her) - that was ep's thought, which was a good one.
Do the settle-in-and-observe vs ER-trip assessment. Everything checked out okay? Yes, then observe. Eight hour window of initial symptoms, signs should all be gone by the 8 hour point. She wanted to lie down, didn't want to eat. For about an hour. She didn't even actually fall asleep - just closed her eyes and fiddled with her fingers. Then she was hungry, and wanted dinner (raw broccoli, which she got more of than she is usually allowed, because, er, that is what she wanted - and her poop has been good lately, so she is getting more leeway on some things diet-wise); and then, um, dessert (sorbet), followed by dessert (ep made brownies). Yes, I'm a sucker when they're hurt, but I figure there's no reason to fight over it at that point. She wanted to sit up, but it made her head hurt. She wanted to walk around, but she was feeling a bit stiff and not-move-ey. She did consent to standing in the bathtub (didn't want to sit) and getting the blood rinsed out of her hair. Which started the wound seeping again. Sigh. More Neosporin, lie back down on the sofa. Her sense of humor was intact, she harassed her brothers and sister, she insisted that when she hurts her head, her brain really wants to watch tv. Really! Even if it is bedtime and we don't watch tv at bedtime. Innocent look. Yeah, honey, your brain seems to be juuuuuust fine.
And then, Manage the cause.
Ah, yes, managing the cause. Totally didn't handle that one too well. I think I said something like 'What were you THINKING, you could have KILLED HER! I told you to take that DOWN!' Woo, auto-mouth. Useful, huh?
Mr B hid under the table in the dining room, listening to Miss M scream and scream and scream (she pretty much screamed constantly while we were tending to the wound). Yeah, I think he probably got plenty of miserable I-suck feeling all by himself, I don't think he really needed any help from me on that one. When I went to go talk to him, to make sure he felt welcomed back into the family and not excluded, he screamed at me to leave him alone. Since he usually hates being alone, I knew that he was in total personality reversal (a sign of crisis mode - people's personalities tend to reverse strategically to handle a crisis, perhaps on the physiological 'assumption' that the usual mode didn't help, so try the alternate!). So I left him alone.
He then fled upstairs, and hid in his room while I went back to check on Miss M. Who screamed some more when I tried to get a better look at the wound site.
By bedtime, we'd managed to get a few things out in the open. I apologized for reacting so badly 'at' Mr B - one of the guys at my sister's school when I was a kid died from being clotheslined while riding a motorcycle, and that's set as an image very deep in my psyche. Not that I saw it, but my siblings being the age they were went into graphic discussion of the probable details (they didn't see it, either). So, clotheslined is kind of a bad visceral response for me. And so is the sound of a head hitting pavement. And so is being told to wait a minute when I've asked them to handle a safety issue. Okay, so I didn't even get a chance to say 'Safe' before Miss M hit the line, I was still taking breath to say that. Still, I was already into 'ex-cuse me?' compliance-first mode in my gut response. Anyway, I did explain where I was coming from. And asked Mr B to handle the issue with his sister - which he totally dodged. Avoidance frustrates me no end. ARGH. I know how bad he felt, but his sister doesn't. He pretty much didn't even look at her as he walked by where she was laid out on the sofa (resting).
As usual protocol (not even requiring any trauma - this is our current round with co-sleeping right now - faster, more sleep, eh), I slept on the mattress in their room. I started out alone, but then Miss M decided that sleeping where she was on the sofa wasn't good, and joined me. And then Mr B asked very meekly if he could come down out of his bed and join me, too. Two miserable kids, yeah, they're going to want to sleep next to someone. Not like they don't usually prefer to sleep next to mom or dad anyway. But, useful when there's been an injury. I know Miss M wasn't sleeping too hard - she woke about three times to rearrange herself into a more comfortable position. So, ouch, but not trauma.
Still, the new job's benefits (insurance, specifically) covers PT and OT work, and so I'm going to get the three of them in and assessed and doing some work - as the Connective Tissues Disorders clinic recommended. Hopefully they'll be able to find ways to effectively stimulate that sensory system enough that 'seeks activities without regard to safety' can be taken off the list of behaviors.
Yeah, that'd be good.

