Friday night football has started with a bang here at the Hall house. The first Friday night we played in Jackson at St. Joe, with several players sidelined with injuries things weren’t going in our favor. We endured the rain, and older sister even drove down from Oxford, but even her cheering couldn’t help us pull off a win.

After the game, a trainer from the other team and then one of our coaches let me know they thought Matthew had hurt his arm. When he came out of the dressing room holding it funny I just took a deep breath. When I saw the swollen place on it, in my heart I was pretty sure he had a fracture. Realizing I was in Jackson on a Friday night which would mean about a four hour wait at any local emergency room I called a physician friend of mine in Oxford. He said two hours wouldn’t make any difference, just wrap it give him some Advil and bring him on, by the time we got there the Friday night football rush would be over and they would see us.

Two hours later we were in the emergency room in Oxford and two hours after that we were out of there with much to my surprise, no cast. Seems that even the ER doctor thought it was broken when he looked at it, but the X-rays were all negative. By the next afternoon everything was fine. I took a deep breath and said, &uot;OK, there’s my emergency room visit for the year, let’s move on.&uot;

This past Friday night in Dexter I was proven wrong. After the half already trailing the Dexter team Matthew headed out onto the field with the offense. He’s playing several postions this year so I just keep the camera on the field and look for his number. In retrospect and after looking at the film I think this play is where his troubles began. He caught a pass and he and Dexter player collided with their heads. He got up and went on. Two or three plays later at the quarterback position he rolled out to pass and with no open he tucked the ball and ran. When the hit came it lifted him off of his feet and he hit the ground head first. If you watch the official game tape it goes on through the game, if you watch mine, well, it cuts off seconds later when I realize I am filming a very groggy, wobbly son being led off the field.

It did not take any of us long to realize that Matthew had a concussion and his evening on the field was over.

We loaded up and headed to the hospital in McComb. Once inside there with the ER doctor examining him I tried to tell myself that it was not to bad. When asked if he had any brothers or sisters he shook his head no &045; that did not bother me too much, after all he often expresses a desire to be rid of both of them! But when the doctor told him that he had two sisters and one was in college and Matthew couldn’t tell him which college she went to I knew he was out of it. As I stood and watched them X-ray and CT scan him I could do no more than pray.

A few hours later, he was much better and we were headed home. I made phone calls and relayed the good news to grandparents, coaches and friends. Now here we are several days later with Matthew pretty much back to his old self. Big sister says she doesn’t know how we will know he is OK since as far as she’s concerned he wasn’t normal to start with. A big thank-you from Matthew and me for everyone’s phone calls and prayers. You might better keep them up; the season’s just getting started.

E-mail

Christina Hall

at

christina.hall@natchezdemocrat.com

.