One would think...

that after the hell that I've already been through this year, that I was done for the time being. That I've had more than my fair share of hospitals.

One would think wrong.

Every evening, the EO, YO, the Nephew and the Niece go downstairs to play, accompanied by their very watchful ayahs and household help. Often friends send their kids over. Occasionally the SIL, FIL and I check up on them whenever decibel levels reach the third and forth floors of our building. Mostly there are screams of joy, but occasionally there are those of frustration and pain as well.

Now my YO has an extremely high threshold of pain. Whenever he falls and hurts himself or cuts himself or scrapes his knee, he just picks himself up, dusts himself down and joins the fray once again.

But not this Wednesday, 3rd March. In a rather stupid and aggressive game of cops and robbers, my little boy was pushed off his cycle. He landed with full force on the back of his head and the cycle came crashing down on his forehead.

He just lay there whimpering and in pain, asking over and over for me. When he came to me, he was still whimpering and just couldn't sit up. He was yawning continuously and kept saying that he wanted to go to sleep. I recognised the danger and called the MIM who was luckily in office and therefore just five minutes away from home. We started off for the hospital where the boys' paediatrician sits, in that evening traffic. When he started vomiting in the car, I lost it and said to hell with the hospital and we turned the car around to go to the emergency room of a hospital nearby (where both our sons were born actually). The Emergency doctor had a look at him and said that we required a paediatric neurologist and helpfully gave us the name and number of somebody he knew. In the meanwhile, the YO's paediatrician told us to move to another hospital, also thankfully really nearby and to get him checked out.

To cut a long story short, there were more episodes of vomiting, a CT scan, admission procedures to take care of, a channel being put into a frightened little boy's hand to administer the drip and subsequent injections and the most frightening four hours of my life.

We came back home this morning and I am beyond thrilled to say that my son is fine. According to the docs, it was "a massive concussion. The impact of the fall shook his brain." We still need to be careful and he still needs bed-rest for the next 48 hours (like that's gonna happen!), but he's his normal jumping-bean-self and for that I am truly, TRULY grateful.

But those four hours, when he was drowsy, couldn't lift his head and was vomiting...I spent in hell.

My YO is incredibly brave. He's my courageous little tiger cub and I am so very proud to be him Mamma. After those four initial hours, when his normal temperament started to surface, I saw no trace of pain, anger, frustration, no incessant whining and crying...yes, he did want his father and brother, and he did want to go home, but those moments did not leave me tearing out my hair in great, big handfuls. He was so easy to manage, a delight to be with and chatty with everybody.

But, I never want to go through that again.

Somebody, please say that I'm done for the year. I don't think I have an ounce of strength left in me...