Guts

I’ve put this off for weeks. Fear and doubt stopping me from writing what I feel about that day. I was bringing the washing in while my youngest bounced on the trampoline. She does it every time. Follows me out, sees the trampoline and asks me to carry her over the spiky grass and concrete so she can climb in. Usually, once I finish hanging or unhanging the clothes, I hop in with her for a few minutes and then we go inside. This day seemed no different except as I finished she called out that she wanted her brother to jump. I told her I would get him, took the washing basket in and called out for him to meet her out there. In that time she must’ve tried to climb down herself and lost her footing because rather than happily bouncing he found her on the floor crying.

I scooped her up and sat with her under the patio trying to calm her and piece together what had happened. She cried longer than she usually would after a bump and the boys fussed around her, worried she was hurt. She wouldn’t let me put her down so we moved inside onto the couch and she settled onto my lap, head on my chest. The nurse in me was planning the hospital trip, mentally packing the bag, thinking through the important details they would need to know but I sat and she sat and my gut said ‘stay put for now’ so strongly that I couldn’t move. I shut off my ‘monkey mind’ (which wanted to go over all of the worst case scenario’s), calmed my body and told myself she was fine, that she would be fine, like I believed it.

Over the next two hours we sat still, other than to get her some sips of water and homeopathic drops. I felt so strongly that I was doing what she needed by holding her close in her home environment, where she felt safe and comfortable and I was calm. I knew that an ED visit would mean bright lights in her eyes, unfamiliar voices and faces, instructions to move this way and that and probably medication ‘just in case’. I also knew I would not be able to help feeling worried, panicked and helpless. I would be picturing the worst as soon as the double doors closed behind me. I would be a nurse trained to anticipate all potential outcomes and a worried mother in the way.

I watched her for the two hours she slept on my chest. When she woke up, got up and vomited I changed my clothes and packed a bag to take her to the hospital and then I watched her suddenly look like herself again and skip off to play like nothing had happened. I kept watching all afternoon, checked her a few extra times that night and still watch now. She didn’t have a single lump, bump or bruise and she played, ate and drank normally after that one vomit. Is she ok? Was it the right decision? Did she do any damage? My nurse/science brain says “you’re crazy, always get a suspected head injury checked out, ALWAYS” and I know some of you will be thinking the same. The other part of me that I have only recently started getting to know is calmly and quietly saying “everything is ok”.

I think she probably fell on her tummy, winded herself and gave herself a bit of a shock. I don’t know that for sure but I do think that keeping her home, calm and cuddled helped that shock where taking her to the hospital may have exacerbated it. I think my gut knew that. Of course if I wasn’t trained or experienced in assessing and monitoring for signs of head injury I would have had to seek help from someone who was. The need for that assessment would have outweighed the need to listen to my gut and put her comfort first. I also know that my gut would have told me when it was time to seek help, when things had changed and were no longer within my scope as ‘a mother who is also a nurse’ and I would have been in the car and at the ED within 10 minutes.

Did I do the right thing or was I just lucky? I’ll never know. What will I do next time I find myself in a similar situation? I’m really not sure. This was a big experience for me, it was about me listening to and honouring my instincts and it really made me think. It made me think about when I was a new mum. Back when I spent many a night with a coughing or feverish baby, up past his bedtime, sitting in ED. I took him there each time for reassurance, so that they could tell me that he was fine, to take him home and bring him back if I was worried. They never told me that I could look after him though, that I knew what he needed, that simple home care was something I could absolutely handle. Eight years and two more children later I know these things to be true.

It also made me think about my grandmothers and all of the mothers before them and how they knew these things too, did them instinctively and rarely questioned. They did not have a tertiary hospital ten minutes down the road or a car to drive there at any time of the day or night. They didn’t have an after hours GP clinic or home visiting service. They had to gather their own tools and resources and then they had to trust themselves. We are incredibly fortunate to have the resources we do now but we don’t have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. As our societal knowledge of science and medicine has grown we seem to have lost our knowing as mothers and trust in ourselves and handed everything over to overworked ED doctors and bursting GP Superclinics.

Lastly it made me think about how I got to know this instinct, at a time in my life when my science brain, nor the medical professionals around me could help me. It got me through a time of helplessness and hopelessness and led me and my Little Wildflower back to a path of wellness and healing. It has gained my respect, earned a seat at the table and become louder and impossible to ignore. It’s like I can’t just turn around to it now and say “thanks but we’re good now”, there’s no going back and unknowing this knowing. Now that I have tuned into it and made friends with it, it is a part of me like my arm or my kidney. Does it have all of the answers in every possible situation? No I don’t think it does but it gets a say and for me it will be considered in every situation like this.

This story is not about going to hospital or not going and it’s certainly not about discouraging you from seeking medical help when you need it. It’s about learning about and returning to these instincts, the extremely powerful knowing we have inside of us about what our children need. Mine told me to ‘stay put’ in this situation, yours might have been saying ‘get in the car and go’. If we can remove the panic and fear and tune into this intuition in all areas of their lives we will know what our children need and we can then decide if that is something we can handle or something we need to seek help with. If we can use it together with the wonderful resources of modern medicine then it’s possible we might find a balance that improves the overall care and wellbeing of our children while taking some pressure off the system. We don’t know everything that our doctors learn in Medical School but they do not know everything that we know about our children either. Let’s ask ourselves what we know first and then seek help for the parts we don’t.