Not Just Another Day At the Park

Today I was reminded of how fragile Scarlett really is and how my husband and I need to always be prepared with what steps to go through when she has an incident and what we should always have with us if she does. What started off as a beautiful day at the park quickly escalated into a screaming child, a panicked mother and a whirlwind exit. . . leaving onlookers wondering what the hell just happened.

We were playing at the park with some friends of ours who thankfully are aware of my daughters bleeding disorder, and everything seemed to be going as it should.  We had been playing for about 10 minutes, already with the usual reminders of being safe and going slow.  To anyone just watching, Scarlett came down the twisty slide like any other child would.  I was standing across the playground from her about 20 yards away when I saw her come down, bumping her chin ever so lightly on the edge of the slide as she came around a corner.

The look however on her face instantly told me this wasn’t going to be a normal bump and my instincts fell into play.  I instantly ran to her and was at the bottom of the slide in the seconds it took for her to get to me and she fell into my arms with a scream that was already starting to take her breathe away.  As I peeled her off of my chest to assess the damage, I was able to see the enormous bruise already covering her chin. . . In a matter of seconds it was bright blue and starting to form a bump.  I immediately picked her back up, called for Walker (my 2 year old son) to follow me and ran over to where my purse was.  I already could feel the stares of onlookers that had no idea what was going on as they hear Scarlett screaming, “Please don’t say I have to do the spray, please don’t tell me I have to do the spray, I don’t wanna do it Momma.”  Scarlett remembers the side effects of the medicine last time (hot flashes, nausea, loss of appetite, fatigue and she couldn’t drink a lot fluids for 24 hrs) and she freaks out anytime she thinks she is going to have to take it.

I’m trying to remain calm and grab the ice pack (that I always try to have in my purse along with bandaids and gauze wrap) and I’m shaking it, doing all the things that it says to do and the ice pack isn’t getting cold. . .  I’m assuming after months of it being moved from purse to purse and being thrown around once inside of it, the ice pack somehow had already gone through whatever mechanism makes it cold.  I quickly sit her down and look at her in the eyes and tell her it’s a bad one.  I tried to be as honest as I could without scaring her and told her I needed to go to the car to get her emergency kit.

In her Emergency Kit I try to have:

-stimate nose spray
-NovoSeven shot, in case we have to go to the ER
-Emergency #’s and Kaiser info
-Ice packs
-Bandaids
-Gauze
-Nose clamper for nose bleeds
-Snacks & water
-Extra clothes
-Coloring or activity for unexpected trip to dr or hospital

At this point my friend and her 3 children are surrounding us and she’s asking how she can help.  I have Scarlett calmed down, but now Walker is shimmying up my leg crying and I’ve got to get to the car and get her nose spray and phone so I can call her hematologist to get the okay to take the medicine.  I ask her to watch Scarlett while I run with my 30 lb son across a small field and a parking lot to get to my car.  By the time I get to the car and get in her emergency bag, I pick out the medicine bag and her nose spray isn’t in there.  Oh (expletive deleted), Walker is always getting into it no matter where we put it, he must have taken it out.  I’m on the phone with the emergency pediatric hematologist by now and he’s telling me to give her the Stimate, oh (expletive delted)!  So I run back to the park, plead with Scarlett to leave and we rush home and give her the nose spray in the amount of time necessary to supposedly help with the bruising.

I’ve been very fortunate to only have to give Scarlett her nose spray for a bruise like this, once before, SO, TO BE HONEST. . .  I was totally freaked out, really unprepared and had a hard time trying to keep my composure for my children.  Scarlett is covered with bruises on her legs, arms, and hips on most days, so those injuries don’t bother us as much. . . . It’s the head, face, abdomen and chest area that really cause us alarm.  Looking back there are 2 or 3 other incidents in retrospect we probably also should have given her the nose spray, (but we didn’t and she had huge bruises to show for it that took 4-6 weeks to heal.)  I feel like my husband and I go through drills all the time for what to to do when something really bad happens with Scarlett, and today I found out I wasn’t as prepared as I would’ve liked.  A lot went wrong that could’ve cost Scarlett a great loss of blood and possibly her life, had her injury been to her head or abdomen and it kills me to think that I was that unprepared.  I was lucky this time and can only hope these situations better prepare me for if anything REALLY BAD happens. . . It’s days like this I count my lucky stars and am reminded of how truly life threatening Platelet Storage Pool Disorder really is.  And that even something that’s on our mind every single minute of every single day and that we think we are prepared for, can still go wrong.  Sometimes I guess God gives us these little scares to jump-start us into remembering just how serious our situation really is!

To read more of Kari’s blog and to connect with her, click the link here.

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