You know when you read the paper and you see something bad that happens to a kid, and you're all, where were those parents? Why in the world was that kid ___________ ? I admit, I do have human feelings too, where I feel badly for these people, but my foremost thoughts are "MAN, those parents are stupid!" You do it too, you know you do.



Until it happens to you.



Those of you who "know" me know that my daughter is somewhat un-graceful, so we have had our share of stitches/CT scans/Xrays/buying the value pack of band-aids.



But, and I'll get to it in a minute, my son has always been the cheap kid. I have no outstanding medical bills on this boy. For example, when I took him in for his kindergarten screening and immunizations when he turned 5, I had to RE-Fill out all the paperwork because it had been TWO AND A HALF YEARS since he had been to the doctor. That's my boy. He doesn't ever get sick or hurt. I like to take credit... it was all the breastfeeding and coddling.



OK, here's the story in its entirety.

My sweet 10 year old boy leaves for school after the rest of us are gone. My daughter's bus picks her up right outside where I work, so she and I had left around 7 am. My husband leaves the house around 7 also to go to school (electrician program) in a city an hour away. My son rides his bike to a friend's house and then they ride their bikes to school, which is about 8 blocks away. So, at 7:30 my son comes in to my work, which is 5 blocks from home, and he says he locked the house and forgot his backpack. I give him my housekey. He retrieves his backpack and rides to school.

Now cut to 3:30. I go across town to pick up my daughter, and we go home. I remember I don't have a key to the house, because my son has it. His school was just getting out, so I told Jarikah that we would drive down by the school and find him to get the key, then meet him at home. We drive and drive, and didn't see him. We went back home, and he's still not there. Jarikah says, you didn't go the way HE goes. So we go back, it's 3:40 now. We are driving towards the school and Jarikah says, is he wearing a black shirt, I say yes, she says he's there, on that street. So I turn and go in the direction she sees him. We watch him turn the corner onto a busier street. Two blocks of driving later, I turn onto that busy street. Jarikah says, "There he is Mom." I look and see his bike in the road. Oh, I say, he must have fallen down. Seriously, it ONLY occurs to me that he wiped out his bike. I pull over and run over to him. As I'm making my way over to him, this woman is running past me on her cell phone, and I hear her saying the address of where we are and she says this: A LITTLE BOY HAS JUST BEEN HIT BY A CAR. I'm like where? Oh, FUCK. That's when I freaked the fuck out.



I ran over to him, and just fell into the grass on someone's lawn, at this fairly busy street, right at high traffic time. My sweet boy keeps trying to hug me, saying over and over, I'm ok mom. I'm ok. The nice lady keeps saying no, lay down, don't get up. Don't move. I hear the lady still on the phone, saying, no, no blood, he does have this bulge in his stomach, I don't know. The nurse in me takes over. I ask Jarikah to hold his head still. He's as white as a ghost, maybe a little green. I ask him if he hit his head. No. I ask him if he can move his arms and legs. They move. I ask him if his back or neck hurts. No again. The lady who was driving the car that hit my little boy was there, she's hugging me. I told her I'm not mad at her. At some point someone asks, who are you, I say his mom. The lady on the phone says, his mom is here. Suddenly there is a crowd, and I'm aware that all the people in all the cars are watching us, too. I'm holding my son's new shoe which was thrown off, I guess when he was hit. My son keeps talking, assuring me he's ok. I am crying. I say, I knew this would happen, this is my worst nightmare. Finally the ambulance and police show up. Jesus, they send a lot of cars to this sort of thing. They take over, holding his head still, asking him lots of questions, mostly the same ones I already asked. There are police, taking statements, handing out clipboards.
No one says anything to me. I say, I need to call my husband, I can't call my husband, he'll be home in a half an hour, I need to call my mom. Someone hands me their phone, because mine is in the car. I call my mom at work, she freaks out even though I told her not to. She hangs up. A nice policewoman tells me she will take my son's mangled bike home if I can't get it into the x-terra. I say it will fit. I will take it. She follows me to the car and puts the bike in. I walk back to the "scene" where they are logrolling my baby boy onto a backboard. He's not scared. He's starting to think this is all pretty cool. I can see it in his eyes. I tell him not to be scared anyway. Someone hands me DJ's other shoe. I look over. His socks don't match. The bottom of one is blue and the bottom of the other is black. Of course. Today of all days.
Jarikah has his backpack. They put him in the back of the ambulance. Everyone stands on the side of the ambulance. Policemen, EMT's, firemen... all talking, laughing. The girl who hit my son hugs me again, and I again tell her I'm not at all angry with her. She gives me her phone number and begs me to call her and let her know how he is later. She asks if he's going to be ok, I say, well, the EMT's aren't in any hurry, he must be.
The ambulance leaves. I am in my car following them. I get to the hospital and I follow him in. They flurry around him for a few minutes, and decide to do a few x-rays and a few CT scans... the doctor says I'm confident that he is perfectly fine, but lets do these tests, just to be sure. I know two of the nurses, they both hug me, and I'm holding up pretty well. DJ is strapped to the backboard, with a neck brace, a head roll, and lots of straps keeping him from even blinking, I think. He's laughing and jokes with the x-ray girls, one of whom was my best friend all through high school, but she married my high school sweetheart, so we're only sort of friends now. Weird. DJ tells her: "I swear I didn't hit my head. I'll show you. What's 7 times 5, 35. See?" I laugh really hard from outside the room.
My mom shows up and kisses him and I assure her that he is ok. Jarikah keeps hugging him and pushing his hair off his forehead, I think, they'll be fighting again tomorrow. I guess my mom called my husband, he shows up. I didn't think he'd be home yet, I tell him. He takes it all so well, and is just talking and joking with my boy. He tells me and DJ, you won't be riding your bike again for a long time. Probably never.
He hugs me because I need him to. He always knows that. Jarikah comes back from the waiting room and now I hear there is a crowd in the waiting room. My mom returns with two bags of funyuns or whatever because DJ requested them. Doctor comes back and tells us the X-Ray was negative, neck uninjured, and takes him off the backboard, unties, unstraps him, sits him up. He eats the funyuns. Dan goes out and gets him a cherry coke. He drinks that.
We go down for CT scan, with and without contrast. He loves the huge machine and says he can't wait to tell his friends about it. I secretly thank god. over and over.
An hour of waiting later, CT comes back, no trauma to his abdomen. All his organs are fine. The bulge on his stomach was caused by his handlebars, and is now gone.
His only real injuries: a half inch scratch on his left elbow, a half inch scratch on his left knee, a two inch abrasion to his back, and his mommy's heart hurts.
I stayed home from work today, and kept him home from school, mostly because I don't believe that he is really uninjured. But he is.

Thank God. Thank God, Thank God, Thank God.