Concussion

What a 24 hours.

Lyss called me just after 3 yesterday with a rather rattled and rushed message; "go to the school right now! Sam's been involved in an incident. I'm on my way, will see you there."

I didn't really know what was going on but headed for the school anyway. The minute I set foot in the administration building I was met by a tearful Sam (our 10 year old). He threw his arms around me and kept saying "I can't remember anything daddy, I can't remember anything".

I sat down with him and tried to find out what had happened. He had no idea, other than that he seemed to be experiencing some form of memory loss. He even pinched himself, at the same time asking me if he was dreaming! He said he had a terrible headache.

It didn't take long to work out something really wasn't right. He's memory seemed unable to stretch any more than about 30 seconds into the past before resetting - it was like he was on a 30 second loop. He kept asking the same questions without any idea he had, only seconds before, received an answer to the same questions. He had no recollection of how he came to be in the admin building, of me arriving or anything much after lunch time that day.

The school wasn't able to tell us much at all, other than they thought he had been hit by another boy just after school finished at 3pm.

Alyssa arrived and we rushed off to the hospital where he was admitted fairly quickly through the emergency deparment. Even though they were incredibly busy they still gave him priority which was a great relief.

His memory loss and 30 second loop continued on for around 5 hours. He would just say the same things over and over. At one point I pre-empted what he was going to say and he asked me "how did you know I was going to say that?" I told him he had only said the same thing around 50 times already! He just gave me a funny look as he had no idea!

The did a CT scan, ECG and blood test, thankfully they all came back normal.

He was admitted and spent the night in the hospital. Lyss stayed the night in the room with him. This morning when I went in before work he was much better, almost back to normal, and more interested in the Nintendo in the games room than anything much else.

We went to the school mid morning and found out he had been hit - twice in the forehead - after stepping in to help a mate who was being harrassed by another boy.

Tonight Sam still has no recollection of anything that happened between 1.30 yesterday and about 8.30 last night.

All in all a pretty scarey afternoon. Thank God he is ok, and looks like staying that way. He's off soccer for 2 weeks and off school until Monday and under orders to "take it easy", which is something I think he is going to find very difficult!