a slip on the ice and a bump on the head

Last Saturday night as I was getting into my Jeep, I slipped on some ice in the driveway. This was no little tumble that I took either. My feet went right out from under me and I fell backwards and whacked my head on a cement corner.
Being the trooper that I am, I picked myself up and went about my business ( I was just dropping something off at a friend's house). By the time I got home, about half an hour later, I had a goose egg to beat all goose eggs on the top of my head. I sat down and put some frozen vegetables on it and tried to think of something besides how much it hurt. I've never hit my head this hard in my entire life and I must say that the pain was something fierce.

Nate was very concerned and wanted me to get it checked out. But I just kept telling him that it wasn't that bad. I did call the 24 hour registered nurse hot-line that we have with our insurance. The nurse told me not to eat for the next eight hours and to keep icing it off and on and that Nate should wake me up every 2 hours that night to make sure I was still okay. She also said that if my headache didn't go away in 8 hours, I should get it checked out.

So Nate faithfully set the alarm on his cell phone to go off every 2 hours that night. Sunday I stayed home from church anyway with the kids because of a re-infestation of pink eye. My head was still hurting, but the bump wasn't so big anymore. Then on Monday morning I still had the constant headache plus a couple other symptoms. I decided to be safe rather than sorry and had Nate take me to a doctor.
The diagnosis.....I definitely had a concussion and I should have gone into the ER that night to have a CT scan just to be safe. But, since I haven't had any blurred vision, slurred speech, vomiting, or bleeding from the ears the doc said I'm most likely a-okay. So I just get to pump myself full of ibuprofen and if any of those scary symptoms pop up in the next few days I need to go to the ER and get that CT scan PDQ.

What did we learn from all of this? When you whack your head on a corner of concrete so hard that it gives you a giant goose egg and an enormous headache, you really should just go to the ER and get it checked out in the first place. When it comes to head injuries, playing it safe is always best. So don't be like me and think that it's not that bad and you'd just feel like you were being a baby for going to the doctor about it. Get your little butt to the hospital!
There, that's my wisdom for the day.