Well! I missed the first day of school. Can you imagine? Even when I took extra maternity leave after Luke was born, I had my mother come for the first week so I could open the year, and then took until October 1st.
We were in meetings on Monday when I got the call from a hospital in a town near my parents (they don't live in a town, they live in the country between two towns), that they had Nick (my older son). They said my mother and he (he was spending his last week before his school district started with his grandparents) had a traffic accident that morning. All they would tell me was that he and she were both awake and alert and that he had given her my telephone number and asked her to call me. She told me also that he seemed to have no broken bones, and asked if they could treat him.
We were 4 hours away, but left as soon as we got the little guy from preschool.
I called my parents' store on the way and one of their employees told me that the girl who had hit them had called the store to tell them she'd been hit and to call the ambulance. My dad had already raced to the scene, and later we learned he'd arrived before the ambulance. We also called my two brothers on the way and tried to call the hospital, but they wouldn't give us any info..........they couldn't seem to locate dad.
Mom had some internal bleeding and her blood pressure dropped, so they decided to fly her to another hospital in Arkansas.
When we got there, they had just released Nick to my Dad. He has a seatbelt bruise pattern down the side of his neck, across his chest and abdomen. He was very shaken. We immediately set out to drive the two hours to the other hospital and he cried because he didn't want to get in a car again.
When we finally arrived over there (we had to drive through two storms with lightning, strong wind and torrential rain, but both kids were asleep through them.......later we found out there was a tornado warning in one of the areas we went through right after we'd gone through), we found that mom's bleeding had stopped. They did a CT and found a small tear in her liver, but it had stopped bleeding so they were watching it. She had a badly broken ankle that they thought they might have to do surgery on.
So this was all Monday night. School was to start on Tuesday. I hated to do it, but when we'd arrived to get Nick and found Mom had been careflighted, I knew we'd have to go there too, and there was no way to get back that night, so I called for a substitute for the FIRST day of school.
So they did another CT today to confirm her liver had healed itself, and then were going to move her to a regular room when a bed opened up, so we headed home.
Now I'm unhappy to have left her there, unhappy to have missed the first day of school, but very happy that all she has to deal with now is the ankle and that my son is fine. He had a bit of a sore neck this morning and if he moves too suddenly, it pains him, but I am just so happy he was in the back seat in his seat belt! I'm unhappy to go to work and leave him, but he is going over to his best friend's house for the day. The friend's mom will give him his ibuprofen and not let him wrestle, she said. I told him all he can do is watch TV and play video games, so he's quite happy.
So that's why I missed the first opening day of school in 13 years. AND why I'm hugging my babies extra tight tonight.
Hello everyone!
...what on earth are you guys talking about? And...can I have some of whatever it is you're drinking? 
for your mom.
