Finally Home

55. Tyler

I held Samantha's hand as she was loaded into the ambulance and as I sat beside her. She was a little pale, but that was sort of normal after a seizure. She seemed to be breathing okay. It wasn't uncommon for her to sleep after a seizure. This was a short one. She should be okay. She should wake up soon. I hope so.

The paramedics kept track of Sam's vitals, which were stable the whole way. Sam's hand was warm in mine. Slack, but warm.

We pulled up to the hospital and we all got out of the ambulance. I followed the paramedics into the emergency room and as soon as we were in a space, resumed holding Sam's hand.

"Did she hit her head?" I heard someone ask.

"Unsure. The parents didn't witness the seizure and the people who did just noticed her fall and start seizing. Someone knew to time it but no one said anything about her hitting her head."

"I want to get some images done, just in case," the doctor said.

Once Sam was settled and notes taken, and a bracelet on her wrist and a gown over her body (which they had made me leave the room for) the frenetic activity around my daughter was much less. I kept holding her hand as I sat beside her. Jenna and Rosie came in a few minutes after me.

Rosie stared at Sam and frowned.

"Sammy sleeping," she said. "Why Sammy sleeping?"

"Sammy had a little boo boo," Jenna said.

I stroked Samantha's hair as I held her hand.

We'd been sitting for about twenty minutes waiting for her to be taken for a CT scan when her eyes fluttered open.

"Hi, baby," I said, standing up and getting into her line of sight and leaning on her stretcher.

"What happened? Where am I?"

"You're in the emergency room. You had a seizure at the airport," I said to her.

She blew out in frustration.

"How are you feeling, sweetheart?" Jenna asked, also standing up, and sitting Rosie on the stretcher beside Sam. She curled up into Sam and started petting her face.

"Okay, I guess. Tired," Sam said.

"Sammy, no sleep?" Rosie asked.

"Sammy is tired," Samantha said, wrapping her arm around Rosie. Rosie snuggled into Sam. Sam looked dejected and upset.

"Why do these keep happening?" She asked, tears threatening.

"Well, we don't really know. But it's related to the fact that you've had two pretty significant head injuries," I said. "They're going to want to do some imaging and then we'll see if we can go home. We were hoping to go out for dinner unless you're not feeling up to it.

"Is it bad I had two seizures in a week? I've never had that before," Sam said.

"Well, you haven't had quite so much excitement so close together either," I reasoned. "We'll see what the images say, and we'll talk to your neurologist as well, okay?"

Sam nodded. She seemed alright.

Eventually, Sam was taken down for her images and brought back upstairs to wait for the results.

Sam sat and played with Rosie. She was starting to feel better, I could see, and her easy smile was back.

The doctor came in with Sam's images about an hour later.

"So," he said, putting the images up on a light box on the wall.

"We're seeing some temporal lobe shadows," the doctor said.

"Sam's had a couple of head injuries. The most recent in October when we were hit by a truck in my, well, truck." I said.  The doctor nodded.

"Alright. That explains that, then. And there's one other smaller shaded spot here," he pointed to the back of Sam's head, on the image.

"Another head injury. She fell from a bridge."

"Are you just incredibly accident prone?" The doctor asked Sam.

"Kind of," she said.

The doctor seemed a little unsure about everything. I could see something was weighing on his mind.

"Samantha has a history of abuse before we adopted her," I said. "Some of that led to unhealthy coping mechanisms at first and we dealt with a lot of trust issues. Sam has worked really hard to overcome those issues."

"Okay," the doctor said. "Because I see some healed fractures that had me very concerned for her safety. And your younger daughter's."

"Well, I can speak to some of the healed fractures. From the car accident, she had a fractured femur and a head injury where they had to remove a part of her skull to allow for swelling. She also had a collapsed lung and the right side of her chest was crushed. Right before that she broke her right ankle playing basketball.

She's had some surgeries from the car accident. She also fell off a bridge and broke her arm as well as a skull fracture.  And she had broken ribs from a fight at school.  Any other fractures, we don't know about."

The doctor listened and nodded.

"I would feel better if our social worker came to talk with you," the doctor said.

"No problem," I said. Samantha rolled her eyes and nodded. Jenna looked worried.

The doctor left and a little while later, the social worker came in.

"Hi there. I'm Claire Jones," she said. "Dr. Frank was a little concerned so I was asked to come speak with you. Can I speak to Samantha alone first?" She asked. Samantha looked at us a little nervously. But she nodded.

We waited with Rosie, in a separate area.

Finally, the social worker came to talk with us.