March 3rd,2014 Started out like any other day. At the time I was a stay at home mother, My seven-year-old son Austin was in the 1st grade at Royal Palm Charter school in SE. Palm Bay, while I was home with his younger brother Ian who was just three in a half. I was napping on the couch when the phone rang, it was the school telling me that Austin was in the clinic complaining of a headache, I said that I’m on my way, we lived about five minutes from the school and on my way I called his doctor saying that we needed to come in for a sick visit.
I get to the school and Austin was face down on the cot, and what appeared to him being asleep. I rubbed his back calling his name trying to get him to wake up while noticing that he was pail white and drenched in sweat, the school was small so there wasn’t a nurse there that day just the front office administrator, I picked Austin up, he’s still not waking up. The administrator then tells me that he just came inside from recess which would explain the sweat, and that he was sitting at the computer and out of nowhere let out this terrible scream, complaining that his head hurt.
I put him in the seat and buckled him in, Still not waking up, by this point I am frantic, I am saying AUSTIN, AUSTIN WAKE UP! I am telling Ian to help me wake his brother, he opens his eyes and they roll to the back of his head, he is mumbling, and acting lethargic. I instead go to the emergency room. I get there and park, I have Ian in one hand and am holding Austin, I run in saying someone help me my son will not wake up. They take him out of my arms and rush him in. while asking me what happened.
I explained to the Doctors and nurses what the school administrator told me; I also had a note from the school showing that he was in the clinic. He is still not fully waking up, and then he throws up. They take him in for a cat scan to see what is going on, and at this time they discovered that he has a brain bleed. I am freaking out currently because I am at the hospital by myself, at the time their dad was about 2 hours away for work. Austin had a cast on his arm, because just about a month before he fell off of the top bunk and broke his arm, so when they said brain bleed I immediately thought about the toy box that he barely missed when he fell and thought maybe he hit his head on it while falling and the bleed was a delayed injury. I explained this to the doctors and I will not ever forget the way that they looked at me, there faces chanced and looked at me with disgust, they called the Department of children and families on me who was questioning me in a way to make it sound like I did this to Austin, that I abused him or something.
I am at the hospital alone because dad is still on his way, I am worried and crying, they wouldn’t let me see Austin and when they finally did he had a tube down his throat and put him in a medicated coma to help slow down the bleed because they were airlifting him to the children's hospital in Orlando. Ian went to my parents; dad drove straight to the children's hospital and I got into the helicopter with Austin.
On arrival, they were waiting for him and rushed him in. I am in the waiting room with Stuart's mom Freya. Stuart is Austin and Ian's dad. She was already in Florida visiting us the week before and she was already on her way to Orlando to visit a friend, so she was at the hospital before we arrived. They gave Austin a cat scan to further understand why he has a brain bleed. He had an AVM. Arteriovenous malformation, it is when the blood vessels in your brain are in a cluster, kind of like a ball of yarn and it just burst. It was a birth defect, and the only way to know if he had it, is if he has ever had a cat scan. So, you can have an AVM and not even know, the way the doctors said is it is like a ticking time bomb.
We were just lucky that it happened at school because if it would have happened in his sleep or while alone, he would not have made it. Austin is now 13 years old and doing well, if you do not see his scars from his brain surgery you would not have ever known that this happened to him.
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