my super awesome daughter

[jennickels]

My middle daughter, Brenna, is almost nine years old.  She is such a great kid.  She so sweet and caring and helpful.  I don't know what I'd do without her.  She was a lifesaver when I was pregnant with Jack.  At the end when I was so uncomfortable I could barely move she took up the slack, doing a lot of the household chores for me without me even asking.  She was 7 at the time.  She amazes me every day with the depth of her compassion.  She is a very special little girl.

Today she also reminded me that she is a very strong, brave girl, too.  She was at the park with her friend and just came home a few minutes ago.  She was a mess.  I guess she wiped out on her bike.  I couldn't believe what I saw.  She limped in covered in dirt and blood, tears streaming down her face.  But did she errupt into a fit of screaming?  Nope, she got herself a paper towel and started cleaning herself up even though I could see she was going into shock.  She was pale and shaking and trying to control her voice.  I stayed back and let her do her thing as I tried to talk her into sitting down.  I noticed the more I tried to get her to sit the more wavery her voice would get.  When she was focused on cleaning herself up she was strong and solid.

She just amazes me.  She didn't really break down until I woke my husband up (he had the door to our room locked and I needed to get in our bathroom where I had some gauze and other supplies).  When she saw the look of shock on her face she just started bawling but quickly recovered.  She's now resting on the couch, still covered head to toe in dirt.  Her friend was with her and they patched up her knee with some bandaids (about 6 of them).  I haven't looked under them yet but it must be bad.  She had blood running all down her leg when she got home (lots of blood).  And on her one arm from an inch long gash at her elbow.  Both arms and legs and her clothes are just covered in dirt.

I have no idea what she was doing or how she fell all I know is that my brave, strong little girl got herself up despite the pain and fear and got herself home and was able to start fixing herself up.  It was a proud day for me.  I know I've taught her well if she can do all that on her own.  But I also know it has to do with her, as an individual.  Like I said to my oldest if it had been her that got hurt the friend would have had to come get me because Meagan would have never gotten up and walked herself home.  She would have freaked out like she was dying and we probably would have ended up in the ER after a neighbor called 911 from the screaming.  She spazzes out over a skinned knee.

I was also so thankful we were home.  Our kids are allowed to stay home by themselves (mostly the older 3).  Usually they are in the house and can't leave except to sit in the yard with friends.  But yesterday we ran to the store and Brenna was at her friend's house.  We stopped by to tell her we were leaving and she said she'd be there or at our house.  This could have happened while we were out.  I know she would have cleaned herself up bravely and waited for someone to get home but I'm so glad we were home for this.  It's one of my fears when we do leave them home alone.  Usually they are all together (rarely does just one of them stay alone although we allow it) so I know if one gets hurt the others are there to help but still...

Anyway.  I just wanted to tell everyone about my super special, amazing, brave little girl.  I'm almost in tears typing this because I am just so freaking proud of her right now.  And a little nervous about having to clean her up.  We're keeping an eye on her because she said she banged her head and now is demanding to take a nap.  That worries me more than her physical injuries.

Here's some pics of her injuries.  This was after she cleaned herself up.  There was so much blood all over her.

Comments

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

PLEASE GET BRENNA X-RAYED.

I know it's expensive & you can't afford it, but if she has a head injury, it could be fatal.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

We've dealt with head injuries before. She says her head doesn't even hurt and I can't find any visible bumps or anything. She just said she banged it when she fell over. She's now happily playing Nintendogs and watching Yogi Bear.

I'm not more worried about that knee. It's starting to swell but she refuses to keep the ice on it. I'm worried it could be fractured but I haven't tried to take the bandaids off yet. It looks horrible even covered up.

And we actually don't have the money to go to the ER. Our copay is now $150 to go to the ER. We went to the store yesterday and tried to pay with our debit card ($100) and we were denied. Not sure what's in the savings either. Figures.

I always warn the kids not to break anything because we can't afford to go to the ER.

I think she'll be fine. She's got 2 adults and 3 siblings keeping an eye on her now. She's being totally babied and loving every minute of it (since she's normally the one helping everyone else).

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Our copay is now $150 to go to the ER.
This makes me wanna bitch-slap every politician who opposes universal health care.

At least let me buy her a bike helmet for when she's ready to ride again.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

It sucks. It used to be $100 but went up this year along with our copays to doctors, specialists and urgent care (and the closest urgent care our insurance covers is a 30 minute drive in Portland although we have a clinic here in town and one in Vancouver, neither are covered, though).

[spiletta42.livejournal.com]

Insurance companies suck so very much. What we need is laws that limit their power over their customers, if we must have them.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Ya know what torques me off to no end? Rejecting someone's policy application because they have a "pre-existing condition". WTF? SICK PEOPLE NEED HEALTH CARE.

Ugh. The whole "private companies will take care of the disadvantaged" logic is such bat guano.

[spiletta42.livejournal.com]

Well, from a business standpoint, health insurance is INSURANCE, and buying it once something has gone wrong isn't how it works. So that I get.

However, health care relying on insurance at all, traditionally a for-profit enterprise, is frakked.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Exactly. Whoever invented "health insurance" was evil.

Several tiers of health care should be available to everyone, from wellness maintenance, to old-fashioned urgent-care house calls, to emergency trauma, to institutional intensive care, to rehab, to palliative/hospice care. Tax me for it and charge a sliding co-pay that's affordable but will discourage hypochondriacs.

No one asked me if I wanted my tax dollars to fund the invasion of oil pipeline countries.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

You know what always cracks me up about the free health care argument. People against start ranting about how they don't want the someone (the government) deciding whether or not they can have a procedure.

Um, don't some suits at the insurance company already do that? My dad was lucky he qualified for insurance through railroad retirement because after his heart attack he was basically uninsurable, especially anything having anything to do with his heart.

Even with that insurance (which has to tied him over until he's old enough for Medicare) he's screwed if he has another heart attack. It only covers a life time max of like $200k. His last heart attack cost him $80k in just hospital bills (not including the doctors). After insurance he was still responsible for about $20k. He's on a fixed income and will most likely lose his house and will still owe on those bills when he finally dies (even if that's 20 years from now). He'll never get out from under that and without government sponsored health care he would have no insurance at all.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

OMG Yes. I fail to see how universal health care would determine what procedures someone is willing to undergo or decline as treatment.

It's also a crime that most health care is outrageously overpriced. $40 for 2 ibuprofen in the hospital, WTF? And yet there it was on Mr. Campy's hospital bill. Thank the goddess he was covered completely, but it's because it was billable to the insurance company that the hospital got away with it.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

I'm trying not to RAAAAAAGE at how screwed up US health care is that kids don't have access to basic medical care. Do your kids qualify for CHIP?
http://www.insurekidsnow.gov/state/washington/index.html

That knee looks like it needs more than a patchwork of Band-Aids to heal it.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Actually they do. We qualify for free health care for all 5 kids based on our income. We've just always had insurance through my husband's job. We're still waiting for Jack's SSN so we can get him on it. He's currently uninsured and hasn't ever had insurance and he's 13 months old. We can't get him on ours without a SSN which he still doesn't have (applied like 6 weeks ago but still nothing, stupid red tape).

That bandaid work was Brenna and her little friend (who is 8, I believe) trying to patch her up so she could get home.

I just finished cleaning her up and it looks pretty gruesome but not as bad as I thought.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad that there's better news on her knee.

Free health care for the kids sounds so much better than deciding whether or not you can afford groceries or rent or utilities instead.

Totally ridic that the SSA, whose main function is to issue SSNs, can't issue Jack an SSN.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

She's feeling much better now that it's cleaned and bandaged properly. She's outside hanging out with her friends.

Now sure what the deal is with Jack's SSN. They told me it usually takes about 4 weeks but depends on whether or not Illinois does stuff electronically (to check his birth certificate) and she had an issue with the fact that there were 2 different dates on the BC, one was the issue date and one was the filing date. I guess in WA they don't do it that way but all of the ones we have from IL have 2 different numbers because they are filing so many of them they don't do them the day they issue.

She said that could screw up the application. I haven't heard anything from them, though. I'm probably going to have to call now to find out what's going on because we need that number by October to put Jack on our insurance for next year.

[campylobacter.livejournal.com]

Good grief, it's not rocket science. They act like he was born in a foreign country.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

It's crazy. We had to have "ID" to prove he lived past birth. He's a freaking baby, he doesn't have ID. She said it's almost unheard of to actually need ID for an infant because the numbers are applied for by hospital staff. They didn't do that, though, so Jack didn't just need to get a card printed. He had to have a number issued to him. It's been a huge headache.

[spiletta42.livejournal.com]

Those dirty wounds need to be irrigated to prevent infection -- you can use saline solution just like you did with the earring issues. She also shouldn't be allowed to sleep with a fresh head injury. I always stayed awake for 24 hours after getting kicked in the head by a horse or something. Then there's the fun of trying to tell sleep-deprived fuzzy-headedness from head-injury fuzzy-headedness, but it's better than a coma.

As for broken bones, skin is way more fragile than bone, so here's hoping that the walking around is a symptom of not having any broken bones.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

I really don't think she hit her head that hard. The way she described it she rode into some rocks (gravel) and toppled over and banged her head on the fence next to the ball field. I'd have to have her show me where to really understand how she fell.

She's limping around but not bending her knee at all which is understandable considering how it looks. She's eating right now and then I'm going to get her in the tub to clean the wounds. It's going to be a lot of screaming, I'm sure. Every time I mentioned cleaning her knee her little lip would start to quiver but she'd put on this brave face and start to take the bandaids off and I kept telling her to relax and we'd do it later (she was still kind of shocky at the time).

With kids it's always hard to tell concussion sleepiness from the kid needs a nap sleepiness. Because all the crying tends to make them tired or bring out the fact that they needed a nap to begin with. She's still asking if she can go to sleep (it's only 5:30pm here so way before her bedtime) but I keep distracting her. Poor kid.

[spiletta42.livejournal.com]

A bath would be great. And I'd bet money against a broken knee, actually. The patella is a really hard bone, and you're basically not going to break it by falling into gravel, especially if it's the skidding kind of fall that strips off skin. It's more likely to dislocate than break, and I can see from the picture that it's not dislocated. It will almost certainly swell and limit her mobility for a few days -- knees love to swell. If the cuts on the knee look deep, avoid poultices or warm compresses -- those could pull fluid out of the knee, which is actually bad if the cut is deep enough to reach synovial fluid.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

I was thinking she came down pretty hard on these rocks which are bigger than regular gravel. I believe the area she was talking about is supposed to be drainage so lots of loose rocks but bigger than regular gravel. So I was afraid she came down hard on a pointy one.

But now that it's cleaned up it doesn't look half as bad as I thought it would. She has a bunch of gashes running down her knee, some are deep but they've already started to cover over so I'll have to watch them for infection. We washed it with soap, rinsed and rinsed again with some salt water which she did not care for. We had to hold her down but she didn't scream or cry.

I had some extra large bandaids to put on it and she's no longer limping. So trauma averted. Just have to cross our fingers it doesn't get infected because I did let it sit a little long (kept getting sidetracked with other things).

[spiletta42.livejournal.com]

The blood itself probably carried away most debris, so you're probably fine. It's always better to take as many precautions as possible, but really, the body will take care of itself more often than not -- had you gone to the ER, they would have treated her for shock and taken x-rays long before anyone got to cleaning up the cuts, and that's after all the paperwork and sitting.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Very true.

She seems fine now and isn't even limping any more. She's a strong kid.

[spiletta42.livejournal.com]

Oh, also? My response to a crisis is to get all bossy. Just FYI. Sorry. :)

Your kid is tough and smart. That ability to hold off her shocky response until she drags herself to an authority figure who can take over the crisis management will serve her well in life.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

I've always gotten slammed for expecting my kids to be mature, self-reliant and independent but I think it's working. She didn't panic and knew what to do to get herself patched up and home. I'm very proud.

[spiletta42.livejournal.com]

Oh, and regarding that bath -- a little bit of salt in the bathwater will reduce the sting of it on the cuts.

[oceania.livejournal.com]

Was she wearing a bike helmet?

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

No, they don't have helmets. The only kid I know around here that wears a helmet is L.E. She's Nora's 7yo friend. Other than her I don't think I've seen anyone (kids or adults) wearing them.

[oceania.livejournal.com]

Oh. It's the law here. All children under 18 must wear them and most adults do as well. I have difficulty getting my 14 year old to wear his now though. The police will chargge him ifthey see him without it. It's a 300 dollar fine.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

I think there might be a law here but it's obviously not enforced. In Illinois there are no helmet laws (for adults or kids, not even on motorcycles). I grew up there so I don't even think about helmets. I know in PA it was law for anyone under 12 and they would fine parents. My kids didn't ride bikes much when we lived there. In fact I rarely saw kids on bikes.

Here all the kids ride all over the place, all the time.

[oceania.livejournal.com]

How's her knee under all those bandages? Was there any gravel in the wound? It looked painful as hell.

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

It wasn't as bad as I thought. It looks all red and raw under the bandaids but that was all dried blood from a couple gashes. I cleaned it up (but didn't take a picture) and it wasn't too bad. No gravel or dirt imbedded that I could see but she just came in complaining the bandaids came off so I removed them and put some gauze on. It's oozing a bit so I'll keep an eye on it.

A couple of the gashes are pretty nasty, like indents in her knee but it's not like road rash or anything. I think these rocks were bigger than the kind of gravel that would be on a road or driveway. I'm going to go over to the park tomorrow and have her show me where she fell.

She's barely even limping any more although she's complaining that it's stinging (when it bumps into anything). Forgot to give her some Ibuprofen, too. Sigh. It was crazy here tonight and the baby's teething and in a fowl mood. Nora's getting her 6 year molars and was whining all night long, mostly about how Brenna was getting whatever she wanted and why couldn't Nora, too, since she was hurting. Oy.

Tomorrow is the official last day of summer vacation. Finally. Kids are camping out in the back yard, hubby and Jack went to bed. I think it's time for some Farscape. :)

[oceania.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, Farscape is always good for what ails me. :) How old are your kids?

[jennickels.livejournal.com]

Meagan is 11, Owen will be 10 in October, Brenna will be 9 in November, Nora is 5 and Jack is 13 months.

I'm new to Farscape. Just go the entire series on DVD last week. I'm about mid-way through season 2 right now. And loving it.