CONCUSSION

Well I guess I do have FOUR boys!!! It was bound to happen sometime! It happened on Wed. September 22. Ashton had just gotten home from school and instead of checking in with his mom he decided he would take a quick bike ride! NO HELMET!!! He headed down our street and on to the next street down. He had to have been going SUPER fast! Of course all is left to speculation cause no one actually saw the crash! We think that his tire must have just barely gone off the side walk, but because of his speed it caused him to first hit a mailbox and then fly into the curb! There was a couple outside working on the yard at the time so they were there shortly after to help him. The lady carried him as far as she could and then helped walk the rest of the way home! I never spoke with her because she had just dropped him off at the door! When I go to him at the door way he was crying and only looked as if he had a bloody nose!

I carried him in on my bed and begin to clean him up and calm him down! I could see his lip was pretty scraped so I grabbed some ice! I checked his pupils which were dilating fine! BUT then I started to ask him questions like, Were you on you on your bike? He said "I don't remember" then I ask him where he crashed, If he had road the bus home from school...? He answered he didn't remember anything! I knew it was bad at that point!

I called my sil Joni and sister Barbara to come and sit with my other kids. I called Chase and told him that I was picking him up at work to come with me! Ashton was in and out the whole way to the Hospital! When we got there I carried him in and tried to hand the lady at the front desk my insurance and debit card! She put her hand up and called a nurse in. After the nurse saw him she called a Trauma 1 and they hauled us back to the room! They immediately cut Ashton's shirt off of him and braced his neck! (It was one of his favorite new school shirts :() The ER doctor informed me after just a glance that Ashton was suffering a Severe Concussion. They immediately did a x-ray on his chest. After looking in both of Ashton's ears he let us know that he was concerned he was seeing blood behind both eardrums! I knew that, that was a very bad sign and would mean a ride on Life Flight if in fact there was blood behind his ears, the doctor informed us that if there was any bleeding that we would be headed to Primary's. They rushed us back to Radiology for a CT scan. After that was done we headed back to our room where Ashton got a IV. Ashton was still so out of hit he wasn't feeling much pain but I knew that it would probably set in soon! They wouldn't give him any pain reliever until he was more stable!

My parents came to the ER with a xanax for me and my dad and Chase gave Ashton a blessing...that was when everything began to turn around! After a beautiful blessing from Chase, my dad leaned down to Ashton and told him that "Heavenly Father was going to make him better" Shortly after that the Doctor came in with the news that the CT scan came back good and that there were no brakes in his scull or facial bones! With in a hour Ashton was doing so much better! His pain was getting worse but at least he was coming out of it! They brought a movie in for him and he even was laughing at it! So they let us go home a while later!

The scariest part of a Concussion is the damage that can be done if there is ever a second concussion within a short period of time! So Ashton was told that he is done with Soccer this year and can't ride his bike, jump on a tramp, play rough at all for about a month! He missed the rest of the week of school. I had to take him in for a x-ray of his hip cause he was struggling to walk, It just was really bad bruising which I assume was from hitting the handle bar as he flew over his bike! After a trip to the Dentist (which was good news!) We could finally let him rest it off! He is like a new kid this week!

NOW I am going to get on a SOAP BOX!!! MAKE your kids wear their HELMETS!!! Ashton is very confident on his bike! I used to NEVER worry about him! It doesn't take hardly anything for something to go wrong on a bike!!! One of my Clients watched a 5 year old boy fly over a car early this year with no helmet, he was dead instantly! Like the Doctor told me he would much rather see the worst broken bones in children's legs and arms then he would a Head Injury! They can normally fix bones but Brain Injuries leave them with little they can do to help! MAKE your KIDS were their HELMETS!!! We were very lucky! I am so GRATEFUL for the Priesthood!!! Thank you everyone for all of your kind thoughts and prayers!!!


One of the things that was kind of shocking to me was how people stared at him, at the doctors office the store...It was nice when people would actually ask him what happened instead of just staring at him with a disgusted look on their face! He was tired of people staring!