The Concussion and a Padded Room

His biggest bump is under his bangs.  I just thought you'd like to see that he is ok
before you read about what happened.

This morning Derek was woken up by the sound of Dan being rather loud in the family room.  It was before 6 in the morning.  Dan being loud in the morning isn't completely unheard of.  He likes company when he is up.  But when Derek finally came back in our room he said "Dan is loopy".  I just thought, "Like usual?".  I didn't know what he meant and was surprised when Derek got his phone and headed back out instead of getting back in bed.

Soon he was back to ask when Instacare opens and I was up to see the big bump on Dan's head and to hear the story of blood on Dan and on Dan's garbage can, and Jake's blanket, and the bathroom, and the door jams.  Besides the bump Dan has a slightly swollen eye, a sore nose, dilated eyes, and is shaky and confused.  It is really unsettling.  Dan doesn't know when or how or where he fell.  We speculate that he got a bloody nose and passed out onto a hard floor (maybe the hall or bathroom).  We took him to the emergency room since that is what was open.    He has a concussion. They did a CT scan, which showed no cracks in his skull.  He should get better with rest and time.  Hooray for good news!

We came home and Jake has been taking good care of him.  Jake is a really good brother and has spent his morning sitting by Dan, and gently bringing him back to the couch when he decides he's going to "go swing" or "get his legs back" by staggering around.  Jake has carried Dan around from one room to another and he helped Dan get into Minecraft when Dan was too confused to remember how. When Jake was sitting by him Dan said, "I wish Jake were here."  Jake reported other odd things too, like Dan asking about someone he could see when nobody was there, and asking Jake if he was going to wear blue and green all day when Jake was wearing gray.  Thankfully, sometimes he says normal things too.

Dan will be fine, but it is not really fun to watch our bright little boy be so confused.    At the hospital he couldn't wait to go home to do back flips on the trampoline.  I suggested that today wasn't a good day to do that.  The Dr. said that the important thing is that he doesn't get another concussion.  I think we just need to create a padded room to keep him in for a year.  Unfortunately, he'd only be happy in it if the padded walls were like trampolines so he could bounce from one to another!  Let's hope Dan's year starts looking up a bit!