Praise

We had an adventure today - Gabe took a fall while on a shopping trip to Ikea. It was a pretty hard one, right on his head.

Now from the time he began walking, people loved to say that Gabe was the kind of kid who would be spending a lot of time in the emergency room. He takes life full on, and he is physical. Despite these qualities, we've had relatively little experience with serious health issues. We were in CHOP for his surgery. We went to Bryn Mawr once b/c he had a fever of 104.3, and later learned doctors really don't recommend heading into the hospital unless a child's fever reaches 105 or higher. We went to Delaware County when he was 10 months old b/c he'd chewed his crib rail and we thought there might be paint chips in his system (there were not).

After his fall today, he was very out of it. Awake, responsive, limp body, upset, inconsolable, to the point that I got freakishly calm. While some might say (ahem, Tim) I have a flair for the dramatic, I was super calm as we worked through the hows/whys/logistics of Gabe getting to where he needed to be to receive the treatment he may or may not need. (Lily and Gigi were with us, but Tim was at a gig.)

We ended up in the ER (Mercy Suburban Hospital). About 10 minutes into our visit, he began to calm down. He was alert, he could answer questions, he asked for something to eat.

The doctor put Gabe through a series of neurological tests, which she told me were to rule out the possibility of bleeding in the brain. (Up to this point, I'd been super mom... hearing that your kid may have bleeding in the brain kind of takes your breath away.)

Gabe passed all his tests, and was released from the ER with a list of what to look for, signs of trouble, action steps, etc. The doctor felt he was probably suffering from a little shock over the fall and that TLC was the best medicine, in addition to Tylenol for the knock-out headache.

Don't you know as soon as we were back in the car, the little stinker asked if we could go back to Ikea for dinner and to play!?

We give God thanks and praise that today turned out the way that it did - for His timing, for His healing, for the helping hands He sent. No matter what the end result, He is deserving of all our gratitude... but I'm sure happy my little man went to bed with a smile on his face!