This morning Olivia was playing in Mum's kitchen while my nephew and niece got ready for School and Mum got the lunch boxes ready. What happened next is the subject of some speculation as it all happened so quickly and no-one was looking at her at the time.m What we think happened is that Olivia, who had been sat on the floor with a toy, tried to get up to standing, lost her balance and crashed into the front of the freezer.
I was upstairs in the bathroom at the time but came running when I heard Olivia crying as it was obviously a cry of genuine distress and not just whinging. 'Olivia's bumped her head' said my Mum. This turned out to be a bit of an understatement as when we parted her fringe Olivia had a lrage angry looking bump, the size of a boiled egg, on her forehead. You know how in Tom and Jerry they hit each other with planks and enormous bumps appear, well this was a Tom and Jerry bump. Olivia was obviously crying and distressed and given a) how tiny she is and b) how large the bump was, we decided to take her along to accident and emergency to get her checked out. Quickly dropping my niece and nephew with a nearby friend to take them to School we jumped in the car and drove the short distance to the local hospital.
After booking in and a brief wait in the reception area we were ushered into an examination room by a very friendly male nurse. He was very kind and obviously very good with children. I had to sit on the bed holding her in my lap while he examined her. Now, I had thought it would be a quick look at her to see if she was concussed and then off home again but he did all sorts of tests on her - looked in her eyes with a torch to see if her pupils were equal and reactive, did a heel prick to test her blood sugar, checked her heartbeat with a tiny heart monitor taped around her index finger, took her temperature with an in-the-ear thermometer. The final test was to take her blood pressure with what I thought was the tiniest cuff ever. Me and Mum oooohed about how cute it was and so he rummaged around in the container next to the machine and produced a cuff for newborns which really was the tiniest blood pressure cuff you will ever see.
We then went to the childrens play area to wait to see a doctor. After another short wait we were taken in to see a doctor. Of course by this time, having had lots of new toys to play with in the waiting area, Olivia is perky and bright as a button and Mummy and Grandma start to feel a bit like frauds. In truly cliched style, much like police officers getting younger and younger, the doctor was about 12. Ok, I exaggerate, we are not talking Dougie Howser here, he could probably legally vote and everything, but he was very, very young. Anyway he quickly checked her over, pronounced that he didn't think there was cause for concern, but gave us a leaflet about concussion in children and told us to keep an eye on her. He also suggested that she might have a headache that day and to give her Calpol.
Olivia did indeed seem a bit grumpy and headachy that day and so Calpol was duly administered. By teatime the bump had shrunk to normally bumped head proportions and gone various lovely shades of black and blue. Then all there was left to do was to wait for Social Services and come and take her away from her obviously inept parents...
I was upstairs in the bathroom at the time but came running when I heard Olivia crying as it was obviously a cry of genuine distress and not just whinging. 'Olivia's bumped her head' said my Mum. This turned out to be a bit of an understatement as when we parted her fringe Olivia had a lrage angry looking bump, the size of a boiled egg, on her forehead. You know how in Tom and Jerry they hit each other with planks and enormous bumps appear, well this was a Tom and Jerry bump. Olivia was obviously crying and distressed and given a) how tiny she is and b) how large the bump was, we decided to take her along to accident and emergency to get her checked out. Quickly dropping my niece and nephew with a nearby friend to take them to School we jumped in the car and drove the short distance to the local hospital.
After booking in and a brief wait in the reception area we were ushered into an examination room by a very friendly male nurse. He was very kind and obviously very good with children. I had to sit on the bed holding her in my lap while he examined her. Now, I had thought it would be a quick look at her to see if she was concussed and then off home again but he did all sorts of tests on her - looked in her eyes with a torch to see if her pupils were equal and reactive, did a heel prick to test her blood sugar, checked her heartbeat with a tiny heart monitor taped around her index finger, took her temperature with an in-the-ear thermometer. The final test was to take her blood pressure with what I thought was the tiniest cuff ever. Me and Mum oooohed about how cute it was and so he rummaged around in the container next to the machine and produced a cuff for newborns which really was the tiniest blood pressure cuff you will ever see.
We then went to the childrens play area to wait to see a doctor. After another short wait we were taken in to see a doctor. Of course by this time, having had lots of new toys to play with in the waiting area, Olivia is perky and bright as a button and Mummy and Grandma start to feel a bit like frauds. In truly cliched style, much like police officers getting younger and younger, the doctor was about 12. Ok, I exaggerate, we are not talking Dougie Howser here, he could probably legally vote and everything, but he was very, very young. Anyway he quickly checked her over, pronounced that he didn't think there was cause for concern, but gave us a leaflet about concussion in children and told us to keep an eye on her. He also suggested that she might have a headache that day and to give her Calpol.
Olivia did indeed seem a bit grumpy and headachy that day and so Calpol was duly administered. By teatime the bump had shrunk to normally bumped head proportions and gone various lovely shades of black and blue. Then all there was left to do was to wait for Social Services and come and take her away from her obviously inept parents...
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