I have a particular paranoia about Miranda bumping her head. Unfortunately, this week, she managed to justify my paranoia by falling and hitting her head THREE times… Groan.
Back before we knew about my sweetie having Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva, she went through a phase where she had a series of puzzling, repeat swellings on the head over several months. Some were connected to specific incidents, and some didn’t seem to have any cause. One thing was definite, though, which is that if Miranda would trip, as toddlers are wont to do, and bonk her head, the result would inevitably be a big goose egg out of proportion to the force of impact.
Yuck, it’s not fun to remember that. Given how often my daughter had those head swellings, I developed what I half-jokingly refer to as borderline post traumatic stress disorder around fearing falls with head bumps.
Because of the propensity toddlers have to tripping and falling, it was recommended to us after the FOP diagnosis that we get some protective headgear for Miranda. We did so, and it was a wise move. Miranda’s “headbands”, which are neoprene numbers which wrap around and protect her vulnerable forehead, have prevented swellings after a number of incidents.
Here’s a pic of Miranda sporting her summer headband while having some sprinkler fun yesterday.
As Miranda has grown older, the frequency of traumatically induced bumps on the head has thankfully declined. Miranda has grown old enough to take some care with her own activities, and of course as a 4 year old (oops, 4.5 year old, she would tell me indignantly), she has much better balance and coordination than she did as a 2 year old.
But – this week has proven to me that my little Miss is not beyond these childhood bonks to the head. The first happened on Tuesday. I was clearing dishes from the table when I happened to glance over and see Miranda running through the living room (and how many times have I hollered at her NOT to do that??), trip, and fall forward like a tree and clunk her head on the floor. I knew she had whacked it pretty hard, so I slapped an ever-ready cold pack on her forehead and sat with it pressed firmly to her head for 15 minutes, ignoring her bawling in protest throughout. Afterward, I had a look and saw that she had a slightly swollen area on the side of her forehead with an accompanying scrape. I resigned myself to the thought this will probably result in an FOP flare-up within the next few days… We don’t make Miranda wear her headband at home, and that’s the (mercifully) occasional result.
I watched the site of the scrape over the next couple of days, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the swelling had gone down entirely, and the only remnant of the fall was the scrape. In our past experience, that typically means no flare-up. YES!!
So… I was pleased to believe we had dodged that bullet. But then on Friday, I was out shopping with Miranda. We were in a clothing store, and she caught her foot on a clothing rack and pitched forward onto the hard, uncarpeted floor. Result: WAAAAAHHHH!!! I did whisk M off to the change room area – the store staff were very accommodating – and apply one of my “instant cold packs”, but those just don’t get very cold and it didn’t have much affect. Miranda had been wearing her headband this time, but I think it had slipped a bit off where it was supposed to be (that’s a risk with the summer one, which has no chin strap), and sure enough, a big red goose egg swelled up on her forehead at the hairline. Sigh.
Finally, yesterday I took the kids to a movie, and Miranda had fall number 3 at the movie theatre. We were actually there for a birthday party of Owen’s friend, and there were several kids and moms waiting around for things to get going with the party. Miranda climbed onto one of those video game chair apparatuses, and then I helped her get off, and all was good – I thought she understood she needed help getting off those chairs. I then put her on another one, turned my back for a moment to talk to another mom, and then turned back just in time to see her getting off the chair, losing her balance and falling forward and clunking her head on the floor. Great, just great… This time the headband did its job, and there was no new swelling, but I’m sure it can’t have been good for her existing head bump to suffer a new impact that way – naturally, the site of that bump was exactly where her head made contact with the floor.
Gah. So, now we’re in waiting mode… Over the next week or so, the bump on Miranda’s forehead will either gradually disappear, as sometimes happens, or else it will go the other way – gradually swell a bit more each day, until finally it’s a lump of alarming proportions, stay that way for a few days, and then disappear in rapid order, leaving behind a new little bit of bone where it was.
