Ever had one of those parenting moments where your actions have directly resulted in your child getting hurt, or more hurt?

Well we had a doozy example of this not long ago.

What had started out as a parenting win…. getting a child to take further ownership of his pets. In this case his fish, he has many pets, quickly turned into a flurry of parental errors, Autistic moments and just plain old bad luck.

one of my sons was cleaning the glass fish tank lid whilst I was cleaning the tank. Something we have been doing for a while. When I asked him to pass me an item the other side of the glass lid. He stepped over the lids and managed to catch his ankle on the side of the lid and starts hopping around like a mad hatter. I having my back turned this whole time with my arms deep in the tank, not knowing he is hurt, am growling at him afraid that he’s going to break something or land on the glass. Whilst growling I risk a glance over my shoulder to see what the commotion is about, too see him hopping whilst holding his ankle. I then am saying something along the lines on well if your hopping around like that it can’t be too bad, take your hand off and let me have a look…meanwhile my arms are still draped over the tank dripping… He takes his hand of to reveal a significant gash that definitely requires stitches!

Doh…. ok…. my arms and hands are full of fish poop and algae so I am hollering for my husband and telling my son to ‘put your hand back on it and sit down’….but all he can think of now is dirt, blood to him is dirty no matter who’s it is….. so there is absolutely no way he is going to put his hand back on it…. thankfully the bathroom is less then 5 meters away and my husband reaches us and immeadiatly scoops him up and takes him into the bathroom placing him on the bathroom bench….. we both are relatively calmly talking to our son saying it is going to be ok but it looks like we will need to take you to the doc to get it cleaned out and fixed…… running through what step we are going to take… as parents of children with Autism we are trying to lay out the next hour or so in sequence to help him through this unexpected event ……we need to wrap it up, whist dad does that mum is going to get a bag ready to go…etc…

Our son is nodding and seems ok with this so I turn around to wash my hands. At the same time my husband has bent down to get a bandage out of a draw under the bench that our son is sitting on. At which point my son promptly faints falling forward off the counter over the top of my husband and head first into the bathroom tiles. I, hearing the most sickening thump look towards the last place a saw him on top of the bathroom bench and meet my husbands horrified expression in the mirror as we both in slow mo turn to see our beloved boy crumpled out cold on the bathroom floor…..

Ahhhhh……… now what….. thankfully we have both taken many a first aid course and unfortunately both have some experience with unconscious and fitting people…. I get him into the rovery position just as he starts the jerking of coming around and my husband is wrapping his ankle…..

My husband sits with him calmly talking to him as he comes around whilst I am madly packing a bag full of paraphernalia for me (think tube feeds, pumps, purse, chargers etc…) and our son (think headphones, tablet, charger, weighted lap blanket) and can hear our son asking why we turned out the light and made him fall with my husband chuckling trying to explain to him that we didn’t turn out the lights and we didn’t make him fall but that he fainted…. a concept that completely alludes him….

By the time (5 minutes) that I heave got everything ready for our trip to ED there is a sizeable egg on his head and a very glazed look to his eyes….. now the head injury might just be the priority not the gashed ankle *face palm*….

I was certainly not successful in trying to tell the triage nurse why we were there with a straight face! He did end up with a mild concussion, the biggest egg head I have ever seen and several stitches. The staff at ED were wonderful and very patient and at our request explained everything in detail to him, and that at my insistence that the needle was going to be a scratch, sting and burn but that then he wouldn’t feel anything, that he was welcome to watch or to distract himself with a screen….and amazed at how he coped with all the information and at how once he knew what was going to happen, in what order, by whom, and what he could do he was totally fine just sat there and coached them through the next step!!! He even wanted to put on the last of the Sterri-strips.

Lessons learned –

Don’t step over glass….

Don’t place an injured child on a bench top and then not be there to catch….

Explaining to Drs that they need to explain everything in detail is complicated because they like most people want to protect children…… but that getting a Dr that will is like gold to a family dealing with Autism….

Parents with feeding tubes are a novelty in children’s ED…..

That children really don’t understand fainting and will still insist that we turned out the lights and made him fall…….

All parents should take first aid…..

No matter what you do you cant always protect them and that sometimes you will hurt them….

And by golly eggs on the head can get HUGE!!!!!!

But also when have I blamed someone for turning out the lights and causing me to fall…… have I taken ownership of my own fall? Have I accepted that it was just an accident and that no one not even me was to blame… it just was…