Jake's Boo Boo

Jake is ALL BOY. He's constantly climbing on things, jumping off things, being a daredevil. He has no fear of anything, and is always on an adventure. His legs look like they've been through battle - with all his cuts and scrapes and bug bites. He's a mess. At least every other day we're breaking out either the band-aids or the ice packs, or both. But he doesn't seem to mind - he just keeps on exploring, and putting up with the few moments of hurts in order to enjoy the fun and excitement.

But, Jake's most recent (well, his most recent severe) injury wasn't his fault, necessarily. I was swinging the neighbor girl around in a circle, and Jake walked too close to us. Lisa's foot caught Jake, knocking him off balance, and he fell on the road. He had just gotten off his bike and was still wearing his helmet, so when I heard a clunk, I assumed it was the helmet hitting the pavement. Of course, he started crying immediately, and as soon as I picked him up, he had the biggest goose egg ever on his head! It was huge! I was worried and took him in to see Rick, and to see if Rick thought we should go to the after-hours urgent care. After a little discussion and examination, we decided to take him in.

Before we left though, one of our neighbors reminded us that a neighbor a few houses up was a police officer on the rescue squad, so we thought he had some medical training. We met him in the street, and he checked Jake's pupils and asked about his demeanor. He told us Jake was probably fine but suggested we take him in to the urgent care just for peace of mind. So we got ready to go. As we were starting to load Jake into the car, our other neighbor came home. Here husband is a fire lieutenant, and she suggested we take Jake to the fire station and let the medics look at him, rather than going to the urgent care. Jake was immediately convinced that we should do that! So, she called the station and let them know we were on our way, and off we went.

When we got to the fire station, the medics were waiting for us. They had some stickers and a coloring book out for Jake, and when they saw Jillian, they got out some more. They checked him over, gasped at the size of Jake's swelling goose egg, and told us he was fine. The medic told us that for most of us, when we swell up, it kind of spreads outwards, but apparently Jake just swells straight out. Made sense to us, becuase Jake always gets big goose eggs. We were told to just keep an eye on him, but that he was fine. Then the firemen asked if Jake wanted to see the fire trucks. Jake looked at them like, "uh, yeah. That's why we're here..."

The firemen were nice enough to let the kids explore and climb on the trucks.

A close-up of the goose egg. The swelling had gone down considerably by this point.