Valentines Day in the ER

The Emergency Room is not a place I like to be. Yesterday we had M's birthday party with family and friends. It was a lot of fun (I'll post pictures later). Afterwards we ate dinner and started cleaning up. My mom was doing dishes with M, Mr. N was drying dishes, and I was holding L because she was fussy (she didn't take her 3rd nap so she was really tired). After cleaning up Mr. N and I were going to a dinner/dance at the church. We put on a CD and I started dancing with L. I was dipping her down and bringing her up, and L was having so much fun. Obviously I kept an eye on where everyone was. I started turning around in a circle with her again and then went to dip her down. What I didn't see was as I was turning around in the circle with L, Mr. N took Little M off of the step ladder she'd been doing dishes on and put her down. As I dipped L down M ran right underneath and their heads smacked together really hard. I didn't even see M until their heads hit. At the time I didn't even understand how M got where she was because she was on the step ladder. The back of L's head hit M's forehead (I think...I didn't really see where, but I know it was the front of her head). The sound was terrible. It sounded like two melons hitting. Baby L started screaming her head off, but Little M didn't even cry. She just looked stunned at being hit. It took us a long time to calm Baby L down. She wouldn't even nurse to calm down, which is unusual. We felt the back of her head and there was a dent. Not good. We checked both girls' eyes for concussions and they looked normal, and then we called the pediatrician. It was after hours so they told us to go to the ER (the concern was that Baby L had a dent in the back of her head, and the doctor said that needed to be looked at to make sure there was no skull damage. We got to the ER at about 8 pm, and we were all geared up for a LONG night. I cried and cried. I felt so bad because I felt like it was all my fault. Apparently babies are a top priority. The triage nurse sent us in immediately. She was very sweet and reassuring. She sent us to another waiting area and then we got put into a room. Apparently there was a drunk guy in the room before us. In the sink there was a container of urine (the kind of container designed for a man to pee in). Uck! Major oversight. When the Physician's Assistant came into the room she was really embarrassed and removed it. I made it a point to not touch anything after I saw that. Plus there was a tiny speck of blood on the floor. Apart from that, the ER people were very nice. The PA came in and examined Baby L. She felt the dent in her head so decided to order a x-ray (which is less radiation than a CAT scan). Mr. N took Baby L to the x-ray. He said that he had to put a vest over Baby L and one on himself and pin her down so they could take the x-ray. She came back very upset. After a while the PA came back and told us the x-ray was basically inconclusive. The spot where she hit is a spot where there is a suture (where 2 points of the skull plates meet). She said that if she had just been looking at a normal x-ray of a child, she would have said it was normal and that the spot just hadn't fused shut yet (it normally does so at 4 months). Since there had been trauma to that area, she couldn't say it was normal, so she was going to order a CAT scan. Poor Baby L was taken again by Mr. N and the PA. Mr. N said she was taken to the CAT scan machine where Mr. N and the nurse put her into a kind of straight-jacket contraption to strap her arms down and then strapped her onto the bed and sent her into the machine. When Mr. N came back and Baby L saw be she started crying, as if to tell me all her woes. We had to wait a while for the results of the CAT scan because they were sent to a radiologist and he had to send the results back. The results came back showing no damage to her brain or skull.
Sigh of relief.
Then the PA told us that Baby L has some fluid built up on the sides of her head (in the sinus cavity) which is cause for concern. The exact words were "Mucosal thickening/redundant mucosa in the ethmoid air cells." The PA said it was indicative of a severe sinus infection for it to show up on a CAT scan. The only thing is Baby L doesn't act sick. She's a very happy baby. She said the fluid build up could also be a normal part of Baby L's physiological makeup, but that we needed to take her to a ENT (Ear, Nose & Throat) doctor to have her checked out. If it is fluid buildup, especially to the degree that it would show up on a CAT scan, it could block/partially block the ear canals which could lead to partial hearing loss which could eventually lead to speech problems. It wouldn't be a concert until Baby L was 2, but it is something that needs immediate attention, even if it is to rule it out as normal.
Mr. N thinks it is probably normal stuff for her. Baby L can definitely hear. But hearing loss can result in loss of only some frequencies. I'm not as optimistic...but that is more my nature. Who knows, maybe all this happened for a reason so that we could find out about this before later problems manifested.
We'll keep you updated.
We were home in bed by about 12:15am. Not bad, overall. We were expecting to get home at 3:00 am.