I've woken Patrick up once now and he was reactive. I was already up doing the old croup routine with Damon and Kira. This is a first for Kira and Damon hasn't had croup for an awfully long time. Kira's on my lap now.

Why am I not surprised that it is now Christmas Eve and I am dealing with a head injury and 2 croupy kids? I'm thinking that if I had all my shopping and wrapping finished already this would never have happened.

I should start taking wagers on Campbell.

They are home now. The ER was remarkably quick! The doctor believes that it is a concussion, but a mild one. His vision problems have cleared up. He sent home an information sheet on symptoms to watch for, and instructions on waking him through the night, and told him to take some Advil for the headache. He said that as for playing hockey again, we should play it by ear and if he has no further problems he can probably play in the tournament on the 27th. And he assured Matt that concussions aren't as bad as most people believe.

Agonizing

We are busy busy busy these days. We are finding it especially challenging to get all the shopping done in time. The kids didn't give us many suggestions this year so they have been hard to shop for.

Patrick's hockey team played a great game tonight and even though they lost, they weren't outplayed. They could easily beat this team next time. And Patrick played very well and even the one goal that was scored on his line he had played properly (forced the shot, didn't block the goalie's view).

However, during the third period, he started having problems with his vision. We aren't sure why, it could have been the elbow to his head during the second period, or it could have been sweat in his eyes. Either way, he went to check a guy into the boards and missed him buy a lot and hit the boards and hit his head. He skated away though and played another shift after that. After the game, his coach talked to Matt. Patrick's eyes were red, he was crying and had a headache. He said he had trouble seeing colours, but I think that he means that he is over-sensitive to light. On the way home we tried to assess him and all he kept saying was, "Can't I just go home and lie down? That's all I want to do." He showered and got into some comfortable clothes. He had no problems answering my stupid questions ("what is today?" "who are you?" etc) but his headache was not getting better and he was very sleepy, so we decided to take him to the hospital. Matt took him and I am sitting here waiting for him to call.

If it does turn out to be a concussion, this would be his first sport-related injury. So far he has been very lucky.