Soapbox

Hard-headed Woman

So I’ve got this kid….

And I took her skiing yesterday, along with her brother, two friends and the friends’ mother. We headed up to Mad River Mountain about 9 AM, hoping to beat the crowds. Much of the trip Kathleen spent in the back, holding forth with Susie about the personalities of the horses at the summer camp they had attended. She is a medium girl with large opinions, not unlike myself at her age.

We got the kids on the skis and pretty much turned them loose. None of the 4 has a lot of experience on the slopes; Steve has the most by virtue of having been in the ski club last winter. Katie has only had one lesson, but she seemed to take to the skis pretty naturally after that, and has great confidence in her own skills. She’s a pretty sensible kid though, and they seemed able to handle themselves on so small a "mountain" as Mad River, so we mothers waved them off and headed to the lodge to read and watch the slopes from near the fire.
They came in for lunch and we headed to the eating area downstairs. While they munched they filled us in on their various exploits. I gave Steve the nickname "Corvair" after his sister told me that he "goes too fast and straight."
"I never run into anyone, and I go just as fast as I want to." was his reply. Susie told us that she had tried some moguls and even "caught some air on one". Her mother Donna admonished her to be careful as they sorted out whose gloves and goggles were whose and hit the slopes again.

Around 2:30 I bundled up and went outside to hunt down the kids for a few pictures with our new digital camera. as I was surveying the nearest lift I heard a familiar voice call, "Mom…?!"
I turned and saw Katie standing near the lower entrance to the lodge, her arms crossed against her stomach, tears on her face. Uh-oh, I thought, she had a spill.
"Mom…I…I think I hit my head, and…I looked for you but couldn’t find you…and…I hit my head…and now I can’t remember where I put my skis!"

Katie does not make things up for attention, but she is, um, very impressed by her own traumas, and often doesn’t recover until I express suitable concern and respect for the situation. So I put my arm around her and while she cried I told her not to worry about her skis right now.
"You couldn’t find me because Donna and I are upstairs now, Katie. Come on up and we’ll have a look at your head."
"My head? What…were are my skis…what…"
I took her upstairs and removed her coat and wiped her tears.

So, what happened to your head?" I asked.
"I don’t know!" she sobbed bitterly as I gently felt the back of her head for lumps. "I… there was … my head, and now…now I don’t remember! I don’t remember anything!"
"Well, that’s to be expected, when someone hits their head." I said calmly, putting my hand over her right eye to let the pupil dialate and then removing it to watch the pupil contract. Both pupils seemed to react normally.
"I just don’t know what’s going on? How did I get here with you? What are you doing?" she wailed.
"Well, you found me outside and I brought you up here. You hit your head, and now I’m checking your head" I was watching her eyes track my moving finger now, which she was doing fine.
"I did? I was outside? My head hurts! Did I… did I hit my head?"

I regarded her at arm’s length for a moment. She didn’t seem to be doing it for effect- the confusion seemed genuine.
"You hit your head while you were skiing." I said slowly. "Were Ellen and Susie with you?"
"I don’t remember!! I don’t remember anything! I just know that my head hurts. How did I get here with you?" She was crying in earnest again, repeating over and over that she didn’t remember anything.
I just sat and looked at her for a minute. The rough neuro check seemed fine- she walked steadily, no nausea, no slurred speech or blurred vision- just no memory.
"Do you remember your name?" I asked at length.
"Of course!" she sobbed. "It’s Kathleen!"
"Do you know your phone number?" She rattled that off as well, and the names of her dogs. Long-term memory OK.
"Do you remember what you had for lunch?"
"Lunch? I don’t think…I don’t…did we have lunch?"
"We had lunch downstairs. That’s probably why you went there to look for me after you hit your head."
"I hit my head? My head hurts…I don’t remember looking for you…I don’t remember anything!"

Enough of this: time to head for the first aid station. I put her coat and gloves back on while she cried and asked me over and over "What happened?", and "Where are we going?" As soon as I told her, she would forget and ask again. Very disquieting.
At the ski patrol station, they put her on a bed and repeated my neurological check, only the medic there had a nifty pocket flashlight to check her pupils. She kept asking where she was, and what had happened, and began to ask to go home. Her friends were located and said that she had tried a jump, fell and hit her head but got right back up again and skied on down to the lodge under her own power.

"Do you remember what this man’s name is?" I asked- a trick question, since he hadn’t introduced himself.
"Steve, of course." she answered, and I was startled, until he turned and showed me the name badge which I hadn’t been able to see.
"I have a headache- I’m not stupid!" she told me. Sarcasm bone in tact, I see.

I was advised by Ski Patrol Steve that I could take her to a hospital if I wanted, or they could call a squad, but that she seemed to have a minor concussion and would probably be fine in a day or so, as long as I kept an eye on her. Which was what I thought, but it was good to hear someone else say it.

"Do you remember who the President of the United States is?" I asked as we headed back up to the lodge.
"Oh, I don’t know…there are two names in my mind, and…." she leaned forward and put her head in her hands. "Oh, I think it’s George Bush!" she said and sobbed.
"Don’t worry honey- I have the same reaction when I say those words, but you’re right, it is Bush."

After I fetched her sneakers so she could take off her ski boots, she asked me over and over again how she got her sneakers on, and where was she, and what had happened. As we waited for the other kids to make a last run down the hill and turn their gear in, she asked me so many times to tell her what was going on and when we could go home that I finally found a scrap of paper in my purse. On it I wrote carefully,
I fell and hit my head while I was skiing. I came back and found Mom. We went to the First Aid station. I have a small concussion, which is why I have trouble remembering. I will be better soon. We will go home soon

I set the paper on the table in front of her as I gathered up books and lunch supplies, and every time she asked a question, I pointed to it. She would read it, and then say,
"Well, at least I still remember how to read…you forgot the period at the end, Mom." Every time. Over and over. It seemed like an eternity.
At last we were loaded into the van and headed back. She grew calm almost at once, and sat quietly, looking out the window. The other kids were very quiet too, sobered by the weird thing that was happening to my daughter.

Partway home Donna turned and said, "How ya doing, Katie?" Kathleen just looked at her, startled out of whatever trance she was in. "Are you OK honey?" Donna continued. Kathleen looked franticly from person to person in the van as if searching for the answer to an impossibly difficult question, and then started to cry.
"My head hurts" she whispered at last, as I felt my heart contract in my chest.

Be Ok baby, be OK, just be OK, became my silent mantra for the rest of the trip. The family doctor wasn’t in the office, and my mother said exactly what ski Steve and I had thought: just keep an eye on her. But she continued to complain that she had a terrible headache, and I couldn’t remember if it was OK to give her tylenol or not, so I called one of those "Ask a Nurse" hotlines. I never got to ask my question though, because as soon as I said that her short-term memory was screwed up, I was told to take her to the hospital immediately. Of course they always tell you that, but by this point, it didn’t seem like a bad idea to get a 4th opinion.

By this time her Dad was home, so we kissed her and put her shoes back on her and got her back into the van.
"This might sound like a stupid question, but…where are we going?" she kept asking us as we headed up Cleveland Ave.
By the time we got her in to see the triage nurse, she already seemed better. She had no memory of the incident, but could at least remember that she had been told that she hit her head while skiing. The nurse happened to moonlight in the ski patrol at Mad River mountain, and told my daughter in no uncertain terms that she had NO business being on the black diamond slope in the first place! I guess I should have told her that before she ever got her skis on, but I thought she had a better understanding of her limitations and would make the right choice.

The doctor came around soon and said just what everyone else had said: mild concussion, keep an eye on her and yes, tylenol is fine. He and Ted soon got into a discussion about wireless networks for computers and Ted was giving him advice on why the doc’s home unit might not be working. Beside me, I heard Katie groan.
"Are you OK? Is your head bothering you?"
"Daddy’s talking about computers!" she complained. "We’ll be here all night!"
I burst out laughing and threw my arms around her. Ted and the doctor looked questioning.
"My girl’s back!" I announced, relieved.

Today she has a wicked headache, and can’t turn around too fast without feeling light-headed, but can actually remember most of the day’s skiing up til the accident. After that, the next thing she can recall is being in the van on the way to the hospital.
I"m not sure how under the weather she really, is, but she certainly enjoys having me wait on her. At least two dozen times I have heard her tell me how strange it was to "wake up" in the van at night and be told about her accident, and she can’t even remember wanting to go on the black-diamond slope at all.
That’s OK- I’ll listen to it a hundred times more. My self-confident, opinionated girl is with me once again, and I have a whole new appreciation for the wonder and fragility of memory. And the hardness of her dear head.

And I’m so glad that in all of that, she never forgot that I am her mom.