At drop offs and pick-ups, I always chat for a few moments with the woman who runs the boys’ school. Monday morning she made comment on what good little boys they are. This is what every parent wants to hear from their kid’s school. I added that they’re really sweet kids and how lucky we are to have them. After Pepa and I got back from drop off we started the usual routine - bottle, laundry and dishes. I heard my phone vibrating in my bag in the foyer. I forgot to put it in my pocket when we got back in the house. I to grab it and see the call is from The Gents’ teacher, the woman who runs the school. I immediately took a deep breath and answered because I knew this wouldn’t be good. She sounded calm when she said hi and asked how I was doing. I asked, “Is everything OK?” She then began to tell me that R fell from “the climber”. It’s basically an old school jungle gym that’s just about 6 feet high. The boys were sitting at the top when R reached out too far for a tree branch, got startled from his teachers yelling when they saw what he was doing and he fell off the side. I immediately thought a broken bone or worse. She said he had a bad cut on his brow bone that would likely need stitches. So now I needed to figure out where to take him. I let her know I’d figure out next steps and ring her back.
Before I hung up though she said she felt bad, like she jinxed them by saying they were good kids. If that morning she had said they were lucky for not having any accidents at this point, I would have knocked on wood to do my part to make sure nothing bad happened to them. But this accident was not the result of her putting a positive comment about these kids out into the universe. This was just boys being boys - not listening when they were told not to sit up there and being careless by reaching too far off the edge of a tall structure. Honestly, we are lucky nothing happened until now, but you never heard those words out of my mouth. I’m not jinxing my kids!
One of my biggest fears while living abroad is having an emergency that requires going to the emergency room. For me, not speaking the language when trying to get treatment for my children is terrifying. There are horrible stories in The States about people getting mistreatments in emergency rooms. Surely the same could happen anywhere. Maybe this is an irrational thought, but it’s one that plagues me.
Being part of the US Embassy community we have process for medical emergencies. And the process is different at every post. It all depends on the resources, level of care (compared to the US) that’s available in the local hospitals, and the resources of the US medical unit associated with the Embassy. If it’s a major emergency, we’re to go straight to a specific hospital here in Maadi. We’re told to not even call for an ambulance, because Allah only knows how long it would take to get to our home and then the hospital AND they might not take us to the right hospital. For anything else, we’re instructed to call the Embassy med unit and they will tell us what to do. This is all information I learned at the briefing I went to a few weeks back. Briefings are long and painful to sit through, but it’s instances like this when I’m glad I went and know exactly what to do. So I called the med unit and was told to bring R down to the Embassy where they would patch him up.
I then called our driver, who takes us to and from school. He was available to drive us immediately. I called the school to let them know I’d be coming back soon. They offered to take Pepa for the day so I could focus on R. It’s hard to catch JR on the phone so I text him, asking him to call me and he did immediately. I purposely reached out to him last, wanting to get a plan in place so he’d know everything was taken care of and minimize any back and forth. I packed up what I thought we’d need for the day, not knowing how long all of this would take, and I raced back to the school. It hadn’t even been an hour since I left the boys.
There his teacher met me at the entrance, explaining in detail what happened, showing me where and how the incident went down. C was outside playing with his classmates, seeming concerned about R and where he was. I said I was going inside to see R and that I’d need to take him to the doctor, but that he’d be OK. When I went inside one of the helpers had R on her lap. He was still crying, whether from being scared, in pain, or needing his Mama. I handed off Pepa, scooped him up in my arms and gave him his lovie. It was the first thing I packed for the day, knowing it would help calm him. I didn’t expect the injuries to be as bad as they looked. He was really banged up and still bleeding. I’d never gone through anything like this as a kid, so I was taken aback. I’m still shocked I didn’t cry when I saw him. Maybe it was something inside me knowing I needed to keep it together for him, to not scare him more.
I grabbed his bags and carried him out. I didn’t say goodbye to C because I didn’t want him to see his brother that way, again, or risk upsetting R even more. We quickly got in the car and started the trek into the city, which takes about an hour at that time of day. I let JR know we were on our way. I then made a little bandage from tissue (sadly, it’s all the school and I had), put my arm around my baby boy to apply some pressure to the gash above his eye. I brought gummies, thinking his favorite treat would distract him, but he didn’t want them. He definitely was not feeling well, so we just watched “Rescue Bots” the entire ride. I wanted to keep him awake in case he gave himself a concussion. Side note, as I have mentioned, driving is Cairo is pretty crazy. On the way to the Embassy our driver actually hit another car. It wasn’t bad at all. It was really more of a bump, trying to get around a car that was backing into traffic to park. Our driver zoomed off, but of course another driver started honking and yelling at him. Windows were rolled down and there was an exchange of words, a few of which I caught. I’m sure our driver said something about a wounded child needing to be rushed to the emergency! Nothing like adding a little excitement to the situation.
When we arrived at the Embassy JR was already there to meet us at the entrance. It wasn’t until then, when I saw him, that I got emotional. I still didn’t want Royce to see or sense me being sad for him so I sucked it up. When we got the med unit, my instincts kicked back in because I knew R was going to be nervous. A barrage of people came in and out of the room we were in, bringing him cookies, lollipops and icees. I know they were trying to help make him feel comfortable, but it just made him more scared seeing a bunch of strange faces. He sat on my lap, lolli in one hand and icee in the other, while I cleaned his cut and put lidocaine on to numb it, which he fought. The PA said he’d superglue the cut. Observing how emotional R was already, and not a great patient, stitches would be a traumatizing ordeal for all of us. After the lidocaine took effect, I cleaned the cut again. JR and I both were asked to hold R while the PA applied the glue because it would sting and if R moved then the PA might glue himself. With three adults manning a 3.5 year old, thankfully, the process went quickly. And that was it. As frustrating as it can be, there is a part of me that’s glad R is a fighter. It took a few minutes, but he calmed back down and we played in the waiting room while we waited for a ride home. We were there less than an hour and back at our house in 30 minutes.
We hung out, watched some shows and ate a little lunch before it was time to go back to school to pick up Pepa and C. When we got to the school I asked him if he wanted to come in to say hi, but he said no and waited in the car with the driver. I understood and I wasn’t going to push him.
C just stared at his brother’s wound when we got in the car. I have no idea what he was thinking or feeling, but he seemed confused with he furrowed brow and concerned with the amount of attention he was paying his little brother. When we got home, everyone’s emotions let loose. It was a mentally draining day for us all. It was even a new experience for Pepa, being without me for the day and in a new place. Within minutes we were ALL crying for various reasons. After I got the boys bathed, washed the laundry and dishes I didn’t get the chance to that morning and got everyone down for their nap, I crashed too. We all needed that rest. We made it through our first accident. I know this is likely the first of many to come over the years. I’m not jinxing them, it’s just the truth.
The afternoon and evening went well, except for when R saw his face in the mirror. Poor kid. My heart broke for him. I assured him he would heal and that he wouldn’t look this way forever. He finally stopped fighting me to put some cream on his face to help with the healing and give him some Motrin for the pain. I wasn’t sure how he’d feel in the morning or about going to school so I figured I’d take it as it comes. True to his usual demeanor, he popped up out of bed this morning like nothing happened. I gave him the choice of staying home or going to school and he enthusiastically said he wanted to go to school. He’s such a trooper. We got some good kids, and I’m definitely not jinxing them by saying so.