Normally, the sounds of TikTok drive me crazy. Today I’m just glad they keep her mind off the pain.
It’s hard to be mentally present when you feel like you’re dying of worry. Worried your child might have a spinal injury. We’re in an examination room at SickKids. My seven-year-old sits upright on the hospital bed, wearing a neck brace and watching noisy videos on my phone.
She’d been complaining about a headache for a couple of days. Before gymnastics she said, “My head hurts.” I assumed she just didn’t want to go.
After class, her head still hurt. That night she needed Tylenol to sleep. The next morning the headache was still there, and her neck hurt too. Her mom started reading about meningitis. We dropped everything and drove to SickKids. Vivi was happy, “I like the hospital.”
After intake, we were taken into an exam room almost immediately.
A student doctor examined Vivi first. Everything changed when she tested sensation in her legs. Vivi could feel the tickle on her right leg, but not her left. The doctor tried again: her torso, upper leg, lower leg. Still nothing.
The supervising doctor worried about a spinal injury. Vivi had spent the weekend at a trampoline park before a week of gymnastics. She’d hit her head while doing somersaults.
The nurses fitted her with a neck brace and sent her for X-rays. Hours later they wheeled Vivi to the MRI. I told her she was about to take a spaceship ride. She wants to be a space scientist.
The neurologist reviewed the imaging results and told us a ligament near her spine had been injured, and she’d need to wear a neck brace for four to six weeks. The trampoline was likely the problem.
I’d always suspected trampolines weren’t very safe. I just didn’t realize how dangerous they could be.
The Canadian Paediatric Society is clear: parents shouldn’t buy trampolines for home use, they shouldn’t be treated as playground equipment, and trampoline parks aren’t any safer.
The important thing was that we’d caught it early. Left untreated, the injury could become a lifelong problem.
On the way out, tired after 12 hours and saddled with an uncomfortable neck brace, Vivi looked at me and said, “You were right, dad. I don’t like hospitals anymore.”
But she had been right before. There’s a lot to like about SickKids and public hospitals.
As I sat there all day, I realized how many people it took to care for one little girl. Almost 12 staff – from nurses to doctors, technicians, assistants and janitors – looked after my daughter.
If we had to pay for that care out of our pockets, it would have wiped out our life savings in a single day.
It’s always better not to end up in a hospital. But if you must, keep it public.
