Puddle Jumping, Emergency Room and S'mores

What do these 3 things have in common? They all happened on our first day.

The plan was to take the kids puddle jumping on Saturday morning, letting the kids get their feet wet and see the Nantahala river.

These boys have to stick together in our group of girls.

Proud to have made it to this rock and fell on my butt right after.

Love how Claire is holding Brayden's hand to help.

After the above pictures were taken Brayden was trying to go to another rock and fell head first into the water. Thankfully PaPa was right there and helped Brayden out of the water. Brayden was crying hysterically and I tried to quickly get to him by climbing over rocks, I was so scared thinking he might be seriously hurt. We got him to where he could sit down and take a look at his head. He wasn't bleeding anywhere, but had a HUGE goose egg on the back of his head. Aunt Michelle had him focus on her fingers with his eye to see if he could follow them, as well as how many fingers she was holding up. He seemed alert and okay, just shaken up and complaining how bad his head hurt.  We quickly loaded up the car and headed to find a first aid location. We stopped to ask a police officer and he said the closest was the hospital in Bryson City, which was 25 minutes from where we were. In the car Brayden was still crying hysterically and wouldn't let me put ice on his head. We got him to start taking deep breaths and that helped him to calm down. He told me several times "I wished that wouldn't have happened." Me too, buddy. Eventually he calmed down and playing on my iPhone became a distraction.

We arrived at the ER and got right in to see a nurse and doctor. The doctor asked us lots of questions about what happened, took a closer look at his head and performed some basic exams of Brayden including listening to his heart and let Brayden take a listen with his stethoscope. The doctor said it was a contusion with soft skin hematoma, but he wanted to get an x-ray of his head to make sure there wasn't anything deeper going on, which I agreed with.

You can see the round bump on the back of his head.

Everyone at the hospital was so nice. The x-ray technician told Brayden she thought he was pretty tough and asked him if he broke the rock he hit. The x-rays came back normal. The doctor concluded it was a contusion with a hematoma. Brayden was free to go, but if he seemed worse at any point we were to bring him back. I guess our whole experience in the ER was probably 2 hours or a little less. PaPa, Aunt Michele and the girls were in the waiting room and were so patient. MeMe came back with me and Brayden to the room, she was a great support. For the next couple of days I had in my mind the picture of him falling head first into the water and I just kept thanking the Lord that my B-bear was okay and it wasn't anything worse.

After the ER we stopped for some BBQ and then headed back to Quiet Rest for the rest of the day. I was mentally exhausted and I think Brayden was to.

We all needed a pick me up when we got back, so I think s'mores were the perfect thing.

Grace took the kids ATV riding. She drove very slow with Brayden and was extra cautious. By this time he was back to the Brayden I know and love so much. I knew he would be fine.