AIBU not to be questioned by a&e staff over an injury that happened to child 15 years ago?

I don't think there would have been any intention to upset you. After all, this first event occurred when he was a baby, and you've now re-appeared with an otherwise healthy, normal 15yo in tow.
I think all the doctor was doing was collecting a full medical history. Remember, he doesn't know you from Adam. He needs to gather all the potentially relevant information quickly and without beating around the bush. If the current head bump had been really serious, he needs to get to the information as quickly as possible - delays and quibbling parents could delay treatment, or even cause the wrong treatment to be given.

This has opened up an old, traumatic wound for you. I think you are normal to have felt triggered. But I don't think that's the doctors problem, and they didn't have any ulterior motive.

@HorribleTime I doubt myself for even telling him now but I couldn’t not when asked “ Any history we should be aware of? “ as it felt relevant obviously being his head

You feel that you perhaps shouldnt have told the doctor about the previous injury? Where does that come from? Fear of feeling like a bad mother who damaged her son? Fear of looking like a bad mother to that doctor? There must be something pretty strong behind that!

You talk a lot about potential damage the injury could have caused, that must be hard to live with. Have you actually looked into whether an injury can cause left-handedness or dyslexia? Is that worry based on something or is is just a worry you cant get rid of? Do you think being left handed is bad?

With love ... Your DH is right.

Dyslexia and lefthandedness and ADHD etc etc are inherited. Genetic. Not 'caused' by accidents, diet, vaccines, parenting bla bla bla. Genetic. Let. It. Go.

And I think you mention there's ADHD in your family, including yourself, so you may well be feeling so bad because of that. There's a thing called rejection sensitivity that might be in play.

The doctor was literally doing his job. If he hadn't, he'd be neglecting his duty of care to a patient, a child.

Sadly the NHS is creaking and so often the different bits aren't joined up. Sometimes the best source of info is the patient/parent! Hence him needing to ensure any blank bits were filled in.

You're wildly over thinking this. I do hope you can get more therapy and support for the trauma you must have been through as a mum; feeling guilt can stay with us even when it's long past - and not ours to feel.

My niece is left handed - the only one in the family who is
Even at her unborn scans she was “favouring” her left hand and both the person doing the (private) ultrasounds and, later the health visitor, told my sister that genetics play a large part in determining whether we are right handed or left handed.
Your son was likely born left handed.

As regards dyslexia, again that is predominantly through genetics.

You are right, you will never definitely know whether the accident changed anything long term about your son but it is very very unlikely that left handedness and dyslexia was caused by his accident.

You also never know what the alternative life might have been for him - it could be worse.
A friend of mine was late on the school run years ago because her daughter wouldn’t get up. They were 10 minutes late leaving and my friend was furious. However there was a massive car pile up with deaths and major injuries at the point where they would have been if they had left on time. Even if one thing has gone wrong in life, we don’t know if the alternative would have been worse.

My point is, “what ifs” don’t work and are useless thinking about. You don’t know how life would have panned out if something had been different. If your son hadn’t had that accident and hadn’t been in hospital then you don’t know what would have happened instead. Might have been absolutely fine, might have been in an accident elsewhere, etc

Things happen. We can’t always help that. They make us who we are but that’s not a bad thing. We have to see the good in things and we have to try to accept the things we cannot change

He did the right thing but i understand why you feel upset. Neither of you are unreasonable. I don't think his bedside manner sounded poor either.

That’s so tough op. I completely understand your feelings. Our first fell off the bed , partner was beside her but turned away for a split second and she managed to roll for the first time off. We got an awful fright and thankfully no injures but could have had a bleed like your guy only by pure luck she didn’t. We were told it happens commonly to babies. Obviously not a comfort in that you more worry about your own but equally you are not the only one where an accident has happened by any stretch and the doctor wanted to hear off you probably to be sure of the answers. I know my medical notes have often had ridiculous mistakes in them and my consultant likes to ask directly because of this. I have had my notes amended but she still likes to hear answers from the patient. It’s very hard getting the past pulled up when it’s a hard subject but definitely relevant in this case.

Op, even if the doctor could see the previous medical records, they wouldn’t be all that detailed. It would say, subdural haemorrhage, specify the type of op, prob that it was a drop and flag up safeguarding at the time. It wouldn’t go into details. I’m not even sure if all hospital letters from that time would be on the patients electronic records. I started working in a GP surgery about 20 years ago and at that time the doctors just used to read the letters and give us a couple of sentences to add to the paper notes. None of the letters were scanned on or came through electronically. It started happening around that time, but was a gradual thing. Even now, there will only be a summary on your electronic records from events before then. They’ve been talking for years about scanning the full historic paper records, but it hasn’t happened yet, at least not where I am.

Don’t be daft!

There are many people with ‘hidden disabilities’ OP and he would have been very ableist (and not thorough) to assume none just because your son came in walking and talking.

@TheKoalaWhoCould you can actually access entire records on our system. But you'd get sacked if you have no reason to do it.

The doctor was just doing their job by finding out all relevant information. Your son may be old enough to speak for himself now but you’re the right person to ask about the previous injury as he wasn’t old enough then to be able to remember all the details now. I feel for you but honestly you’re being too sensitive and overthinking it.

even then it depends and old records may not be on there.

All hospitals aren’t linked, only if they’re the same Trust I think.
But yes, he was probably asking the appropriate questions but maybe not sensitively and you are obviously still sensitive to the experience.
I took DS to minor injuries/a&e a few times he skateboarded and often got injured (luckily never badly but broke thumb and had a few sprains) and he was always asked himself how he got an injury and once we had a bit of a laugh with a nice nurse who said he averaged out one x-ray per year over a few years. A good bedside manner helps a lot.

You seem to be assuming that the doctor can access your sons records from a different hospital from 15 years ago - I dont think thats true.
From what you wrote he was checking your sons medical history which does obviously include his injury.
It sounds like you carry a lot of guilt for what happened back then and it triggers you on top of the scare you have had with the current injury. Perhaps a bit of therapy would help.

You are a great mum. You did exactly the right thing telling the doctor about the history even though it is painful for you.

I’ve had brain surgery and any head trauma they need to know what is new - for example I have epilepsy from it so an epileptic fit won’t mean new damage from current issue. (The 111 people sometimes sound surprised if I have a bump and then say yes as it isn’t that common.)

Yoi had a good doctor. There are bits I don’t remember even though I was as an adult so I have some notes at home which is useful when I sign up with a new GP or need to see someone at hospital. Maybe you can talk to your son and write something up. It might help answer some of his questions. Mine also has other regular things like year I had my appendix out.

The injury being on the right side of the brain would have affected his left hand side , not his right. So it's definitely not the reason he is left handed .

I can understand it was upsetting, but he was doing a thorough history with your son and making sure everything relevant was recorded. It was especially relevant being an injury in the same place.

I think he was trying to be kind, perhaps he could tell you were upset and wanted to acknowledge it had been a difficult experience for you.

Dyslexia has nothing to do with it apart from your own worries and guilt.

I would take it as an opportunity to book a few sessions with a counsellor to work through your thoughts and feelings and unresolved trauma from ‘brushing it under the carpet’.

Of course its not ok. I was in the NHS and one of my final jobs was to be involved in one of the very beginning local level projects to introduce the idea of a nation wide electronic health record and to start the design process of what it might look like. Do you know who fought against it and did not want it? The patients! They were (rightly) concerned about confidentiality but we could not get them to understand how dreadful the security is around written records.

PPs explain the lack of medical records in such a matter of fact way as if it’s ok. It is appalling that our complete medical records aren’t available. If it is important for them to have information for events that happened 15 years ago then you’d think they’d want accurate information - what medical professionals recorded at the time rather than the memory of a mum who is already on edge due to her child’s current issue.

I honestly think people have got so used to how shit our health service is they are not only blind to it but feel the need to make ridiculous excuses for it.

I think the Dr was just being thorough, my baby was in an incubator the first night of his life and they still ask me about that when we go into hospital so I don't think it was a judgement on you x

Hi OP, the doctor was doing his job thoroughly and properly, sounds like a good doctor you got there. I'm so sorry for the trauma you went through when your boy was a baby, that sounds so frightening. What happened to him definitely wouldn't have caused his dyslexia and most definitely not his left handedness either. Children start to show their dominant hand before age one, not when writing of course but in terms of picking things up. I hope you are ok. You are a good mother and did nothing wrong. Sometimes horrible accidents happen, and that is literally what they are, and accident, no ones fault xx

To give another example, neuroscientists have found that blind people (and blind animals) use areas of the brain normally associated with visual processing to process audio input, in addition to the areas normally associated with audio processing.

I know it’s scary thinking his accident may have damaged his brain in some irreparable way. But brains, particularly in very young children, are also adaptable. There is actually a treatment for particularly severe epilepsy that involves removing half of a child’s brain (the half causing the seizures). Those kids do ok. Their remaining brain tissue adapts and builds new neural connections to compensate for what has been lost. So it’s entirely possible that even if some brain tissue was irreparably damaged during your son’s accident, the rest of his healthy brain tissue compensated and built connections a little differently and so he has no deficits from the accident.

No he wasn't. Don't be daft.

I agree with this. Obviously it was upsetting for you to have to relive that traumatic time. And your son doesn't remember what happened do only you can answer questions about what happened when he was injured as a baby. So you either need to put it behind you if you can. If not maybe some counselling would help.