Sunday started off as such a lovely day, we had a nice big breakfast had a bit of a lazy morning and then we went for a family swim at the pool.
It was really hot even by mid afternoon so Arthur and I were playing in his room with the Air Con on we had a really nice hour or so.
I then for some reason I will never really no let him play on the bed, his play mat had been put on there as Mark had been cleaning the floor (he’s a keeper!) and rather than move it back i left it up there.
As with every house here I know all the floors are tiled, it helps to keep the house cool and its easy to clean with all the sand and dust but it isn’t baby friendly at all.
I’m sure you can see it coming, Arthur fell off the bed. The sound of him hitting the floor made me feel sick to my stomach. I ran to him and grabbed him. Initially he screamed but once I had him cuddled up he went really quiet. I grabbed Mark and we got a few things together for Arthur and went up to the hospital.
He had a bump on his head and it bruised straight away, being so quiet made us think he had a concussion so we were desperately trying to keep him awake in the car. Of course we were stuck behind the slowest driver ever who was literally stopping and waving to everyone he saw.
In the car I broke down crying I think, I think it was because I gave myself a second to realise how awful it was that I let this happen to our baby. I started thinking that Mark was going to hate me because i’d let it happen and of course I was extremely worried that there was real damage to our little guy.
At the hospital there was hardly anyone around and you could see everyone really had that Sunday feeling, no urgency all the nurses were sat around watching local TV (showing what can only be described as the Seychelles version of songs of praise).
We didn’t have to wait long at all to see the doctor which i was impressed with. His English was not good and it was difficult to communicate with him but he figured out that Arthur had a fall and hit his head. He shone a big torch in his eyes (like a torch you would take down into a basement not a little doctors one) and asked if he had been sick (he hadn’t).
The doctor then grabbed the book that said ‘paying patients’ on it, I felt like he was excited to fill this in. He said Arthur was fine but he was going to keep him in for 4 hours to observe him. We were taken to the children’s ward which had one little girl in who was clearly quite poorly. We sat there with Arthur the nurse eventually came looking a little annoyed that we had made her miss some of her tv. She asked us if he had a temperature we said we hadn’t taken it so off she shuffled to get a thermometer. He didn’t have a temperature. She gave him some medicine for any pain he may have from the bump.
After an hour it was time that Arthur would normally have his dinner and we had nothing like that with us. We asked if he could have food the doctor said no not for 4 hours, the nurse corrected him and said 2 hours will be fine. Mark drove home and got a bottle for him so we would have it ready when he could have it. We decided we would just give him milk and see how he got on with that.
By the time we had been there for 2 hours I went out and said Arthur was hungry and asked if I could I feed him. The doctor then said we could go home. After some confusion it was determined we would have to pay 800sr (around 40 quid) for our 2 hours in the hospital. I can’t help but feel a little ripped off, I know we had piece of mind which of course is amazing but I am not really sure where that figure came from (the cynic in me thinks maybe it covered the next months TV costs so they could watch more songs of praise!)
Arthur settled down very quickly for bed, it was an hour past his usual bed time so this wasn’t a surprise.
Although I was relieved that Arthur was safe I couldn’t relax. I checked on him continuously through the night and spent the whole time just beating myself up about what a crap mum I was that this had happened.
Mark was amazing through it all and kept me calm and reassured me that I’m not crap! I also got lots of lovely support off my parents the next day and from lots of my lovely twitter friends who all confirmed that this had happened to them in some shape or form with their babies.
I am still feeling pretty crappy about the whole thing but Arthur is fine, just a little bruise on his head. I think its a lesson that had to happen and a reminder that I will always have to stay on my toes with Arthur.
