What are you going to do?

There's been a rash of head injuries in our town recently. Just yesterday, at a soccer game in a neighboring town, two of our town's soccer players received head injuries due to hard, intentional fouls by the other team. One also cracked five ribs, and for the other, it was his 3rd head injury in 18 months. No more contact sports for that kid, period. (And, of course, the ref, contracted by the other team, "didn't see" the fouls. Convenient, that.)

It got me thinking about another friend of C's who had a bad concussion last winter in a hockey game. This nice, nice kid had issues with short term memory, headaches, and all the other classic signs. Several weeks after the initial injury, and after a couple CT scans, he was still having headaches and other symptoms.

Around that time, this boy invited C and a few others to go out to the movies. After dropping off C at the theater, I ran into the mom in the parking lot and we got to chatting. I asked about the boy's recovery and the mom told me that it was up and down. Then she told me that the doctor had said the boy should not watch a lot of TV, read any more than necessary, and basically try to avoid much visual stimulation. I was kinda floored as she'd just dropped him at a movie theater, and then she added, "But what are you going to do?"

Um....

She said she got tired of the boy's complaints and caved. I know I shouldn't sit in judgment until I've actually lived her life, but I wanted to scream right there, "What are you going to do? You are going to go get him from that movie theater and take him home and put him in a dark room with soothing music or books on tape for as long as it takes!" But I didn't.

I guess I feel entitled to say this given the experience I have had parenting a critically ill child, but I would absolutely follow doctors orders. It might be hard - on both of us - but, sheesh! As the parent you sometimes have to do the hard thing.

I hope we never have to deal with the head injury issue. Please oh please let us have had our fill of crisis! But should it happen, I know what I am going to do.