How Do You Survive Accident-Prone Children? How Do Your Children Survive Being Accident-Prone (Part 1)

How do you survive, and how do you help your children survive, whooping cough, cuts, bruises, getting lost and the everyday hazards of highly active children? I know, this sounds like all children go through this. But I felt like mine went through more than most.

When Pregnant with my first son, I had a woman who came to visit me bringing her two children, both of whom had rubella also known as German measles. I did not know they had the disease, until a neighbor told me about the children having Rubella and thought measles are measles and still did not know the danger of being around this disease, especially for a pregnant woman.

While I did not know, I would like to think that my visitor did not know either:

• Did not know that I was pregnant?
• Did you know that pregnant women can contract German Measles from exposure, even if she had German Measles?
• Did you know this disease can endanger and/or predispose the fetus to numerous disabilities?

Within a couple days of her visit, I broke out in a rash, with a fever. When I went to the doctor, I was asked if I was exposed to any children who were sick, when I told him that I had been. Doctor Dvorak informed me that I had Rubella (i.e. German measles) he also informed me of the danger to my unborn baby.

"Rubella in a pregnant woman can cause congenital rubella syndrome, with potentially devastating consequences for the developing fetus. Children who are infected with rubella before birth are at risk for growth retardation; mental retardation; malformations of the heart and eyes; deafness; and liver, spleen, and bone marrow problems."

Source: http://kidshealth.org/parent/infections/skin/german_measles.html

When the beautiful little baby boy was placed in my arms all thoughts of any of the consequences of Rubella disappeared from my mind although he only weighed four pounds. He was born on his due date, and the doctor told me he could not find anything wrong with him, as he handed me a tiny little box with a gift from my son. He was born with a tooth. It was my son's tooth that was pulled. (I have that little box with the tooth, to this day.)

I see the TV commercial about the danger of infants getting whooping-Cough from their parents and I am reminded how serious this disease is. I never thought for one second that my baby could die, when at about two or three months old my little one got whooping-cough.

My son Brett got over the whooping-cough and at about nine months old, because he did not show any signs of trying to talk I made an appointment and took him for an audiology test, and was informed he was born deaf, as a result of the German measles.

Some days or week later, I let my son play on a mat on the floor, I looked away for only a moment and when I look back at the mat, he had vanished. In a panic I checked the doors they were still locked from the inside, I checked under everything, behind everything, anywhere he could hide.

He could climb upon the couch and onto chairs, but he was not on the couch or on any of the chairs. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, and then suddenly I heard a noise in the kitchen I looked but did not see him, then I saw one of the knick knacks on the floor that had been on the window seal.

A chair was pulled out from the table and the table was under the window, I ran to the window pulled the curtain back and there he sat grinning at me. He had climbed upon the chair, and from the chair upon the table then from the table upon the wide window seal.

The table got moved in a hurry. I could only imagine if he had fallen from up there. The Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) would never believe that this little boy could climb like that, when I couldn't believe it myself.

Charles "Poochie" my then husband's best friend returned from vacationing in Florida with his wife and daughter and they brought a spider monkey back with them and told us he brought it for us as a gift. (Probably his wife did not want it and he was pawning it off on us.)

Bill was thrilled! We did not have a cage for him so we put him in a box for the night, but he got out of the box and the next morning he was on the shadow box (Knick knack box that hangs on the wall) and the monkey used the wall paper for toilet paper.

After Bill put the monkey back in the box, I told him, "when you come home from work take the monkey to the pet store" Bill said he would, but sometime before Bill got off work, the monkey got out of the box again, ran up to Brett and bit him on the finger.

I called Bill at work and told him I was taking the baby to the doctor because the monkey bit him, and the monkey better not be there when I come home.

I did not need this. I was about five or six months pregnant with my second baby and did not need this hassle.

The monkey was gone when I returned home and we never mentioned it again.

At the age of two and a half Brett was accepted at the Henner Hearing and Speech Center for young deaf and hard of hearing children, in down town Chicago and I was enrolled in a Sign Language class at the same center. I had no baby sitter so I had to take Wally with me, and no one seemed to mind.

At the ripe old age of three and a half Brett had a 'Bilateral Myringotomy' at Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago. The nurse took him from my arms and placed him in a crib with high sides and told me to go home.

As I was walking down the long hallway to the lobby I heard a loud commotion behind me and turned around to see Brett running after me with the hospital gown flying in back of him like Superman's cape. I held him to sooth his fears and they let me stay with him until he fell asleep.

The next morning when I arrived Brett was sitting in the crib looking so sad and over the crib was netting. I asked "Why?" "Brett must feel like he is being tortured." The nurse told me that during the night Brett had climbed out of the crib and went looking for me several times and the netting was to keep him in the crib. And I cried for my precious little boy.

Myringotomy (from Latin myringa "eardrum")is a surgical procedure in which a tiny incision is created in the eardrum to relieve pressure caused by excessive buildup of fluid, or to drain pus from the middle ear. A tympanostomy tube is inserted into the eardrum to keep the middle ear aerated for a prolonged time and to prevent re-accumulation of fluid. Without the insertion of a tube, the incision usually heals spontaneously in two to three weeks.

Source: http://www.chp.edu/our-services/ent/patient-procedures/bilateral-myringotomy

I had gone shopping with three year old Brett and one and a half year old Wally. I think it was a Zayre Store in Chicago.

And while putting Wally in the shopping cart, then when I turned around to put Brett in the cart also, he was gone and was nowhere in sight. I could not call out to him, he would not hear me. I went to look for a sales person to announce over the intercom that a little boy was lost in the store.

Before I could find a sales person, I saw a crowd of people around the counter where makeup and perfume was sold. The crowd was laughing at something behind the counter and then I saw a sales person there also, as I headed in that direction, It was then that I saw him.

Brett was perched on a high stool behind the counter, in front of a mirror and the crowd was watching. He was trying on sun glasses and making faces at the mirror and the crowd. It was such a comical sight the crowd was laughing and cheering him on.

What a fright that can give a young mother.

Brett had not turned four, when he was fitted with a hearing-aid. Not that he could hear with it, I think it just amplified the sound, but I was told that he needed it because he had been accepted at a main stream school that had a special need class.

Bill, who loved animals, had found a Doberman Pincher, and it seemed friendly, so he brought it home. He said it would be protection for me and the boys, until he could find out who the dog belonged to.

The Doberman had a light chain hooked onto a collard Bill bought and he left him in the wide hallway between the kitchen and living room where he made a bed for him when he left him to go to the store. I was not afraid of the dog, but did leave the chain on the collar with the loose end around a chair leg in the kitchen.

The boys had pulled toys into the living from their bedroom and were busy playing while I made breakfast, when suddenly Brett made a move that caused feedback from his hearing-aid. The dog started to growl and was getting up from where he was laying. I grabbed the chain and the sudden jerk by the dog caused me to sat down on the floor.

He was dragging me toward the door; I put one foot on each side of the door frame. I could feel my fingers getting numb from the grip on the chain. Then the Doberman relaxed a bit and as I was letting the chain go slack, there was another screech from the hearing-aid and I had to grip the chain again.

I don't know how long I sat there, praying that neither of my babies would come into the hallway, it seemed an eternity, before Bill came home, he took the Doberman to the service station where he worked and found the 'Lost Dog' post on a bulletin board.

Bill returned the Doberman to his owner, but I shiver to think of how the situation could have turned out.

Things went relatively normal for a few months, Wally did not crawl much, by nine months he was already running. Despite constant efforts to keep him from running the house, it was as if he could not slow down to a walk.

Wally always had his tongue hanging out. And, on one early afternoon he zoomed through the house and tripped and when he came down his chin hit the corner of the coffee table. There was so much blood, I thought he bit his tongue off. I gave him ice chips and called the hospital.

I could see his bottom teeth on top of his tongue and lifted it off the teeth, and continued to feed him ice chips, while I talked to the attendant at the hospital, who told me, "We can't sew up a tongue, lady" and click, he hung up. He didn't even tell me about the ice, I don't know why I just kept thinking 'ice chips keep the swelling down.'

It was Christmas Eve and unusually warm for Chicago, my boys wanted to go outside, so I took them outside to play.

Anyone who thinks they know how fast a little kid can run, never met my Wally.

Brett and Wally were running and suddenly they are on a collision course and both looking in the opposite direction. I yelled Wally and they both turned just as they hit head-on. Brett's cheek bone struck Wally in the eye, and on Christmas day it was black (see picture above).

Bill's mother Minnie, was having Christmas Dinner at her house. My mom and dad and both my brothers were there. Before Dinner we had a family picture made and you could see Wally's shiner.

My brother Tony picked Wally up and pitched him up in the air, when he came down his feet hit Tony in the chest and he did a flip and landed on his head which knocked him out. Tony did CPR while I called for an ambulance.

He was conscious at Walther Memorial Hospital and they wanted to keep his for observation overnight. They had me wait outside the room while they were questioning him.

The questioning went something like this:

Q. "What happened to you tonight?"

A. "First I was up, and then I was down."

Q. "How did you get a black eye?"

A. "I ran into my brother"

Walther Memorial Hospital closed in 1987.

Coming soon, Part 2.

Appendectomy

The Concussion

The Dirt Bike

Swinging from the Monkey Bars

Broken Foot

Not all bumps and bruises lead to sore endings

Cycling

Maybe a few other things I might remember as I write part 2