Can you tell me, just one more time..?

Sigh... last night, I got one of those calls. You know which kind I'm talking about. The ones that start off with "Mom... I'm not sure what happened but can you come and get me?" Naturally, the heart begins to pound and you say "Of course, be right there." So, turns out, he was outside playing manhunt with his buddies and there was some sort of a tackle somewhere, somehow, and he ended up whacking his head on the pavement. He went out for a few seconds and had trouble seeing when he came to.

I was washing floors, so Al went to pick him up to bring he home but when he got there and found out what happened, took him directly to the Emergency Room. Along the way, he had no recollection of what had happened and many other facts as well. They did a CT Scan and took bloodwork and determined that he had a concussion but was fine other than that.

When he got home, he asked over and over what had happened and was fixated on asking what month it was and when the Freshman State Tournament for wrestling was. We answered all of his questions and I got up every two hours to wake him to check on him, each time crawling into bed with him to answer his questions yet again. It was heartbreaking to see my young man (who will always be my baby) getting so frustrated and overwhelmed because he couldn't remember anything but knew something had happened as evidenced by his headache and hospital wrist band.

As of 6:00 AM he began remembering some things like the fact that it was January and could "guess" by process of elimation who the Pats were playing for the AFC Championship tonight, although he was shocked to hear that it was Sunday, thinking that it was Saturday because he lost all that happened after 5:00 pm. This morning, he slept until 10:00 and is up now, still not remembering anything about the incident and what happened since then but is reading the account of his day that I typed up at his request so that he can read and re-read as often as he wants to. He's still having trouble retaining new information.

So, tonight we have a crew coming over for the game, and I've got some cooking to do but all I can think of is my son and hoping and praying that he'll have a complete recovery. As I told him, he may never remember the incident itself but his ability to remember things will increase and he's already doing so.

It's ironic that I deal with inquiries of "Are we going to lunch?" the minute we get back from lunch all day long from one of my students who has a brain injury. I calmly answer him each time and tell him that we just went and to check his picture schedule. I look into his eyes and see that blank stare sometimes and wonder what's going on in there. I saw that blank stare last night, and eyes rimming in frustration at his inabilty to remember. Hopefully, this is very temporary for my Jake and that he'll be back to his old self soon. He's seeing the pediatrician tomorrow morning but until then, he'll lay low and rest.