Brief Answer:
Measure it

Detailed Answer:
Good evening. My name is Dr. Saghafi and I am happy to give you a couple of suggestions that should make you and your son feel better without having to go all the back to the ER and few more hours for no reason.

It's not unusual in this type of an injury for there to be a small accumulation of fluid or some blood in a particular area where perhaps he got a particularly nasty whack. If he's not really complaining of significant pain and you don't see this area really swelling up then, things will be just fine.

What you can do is get a magic marker so that you can mark the skin and draw a border around the area that is affected in your opinion. You can then, redraw the borders in 24 hrs. with a different color marker to see if there are any changes.

In the mean time why not take a bag of crushed ice and place it over that area a couple of times per day for the next several days. After 3 days you can switch to either a heating pad or warmed towels.

You'll find that area resolving in the next 24-48 hrs. If, however, you find this area to be expanding in the next 24 hrs. or if your son starts to develop any severe pain or headaches in that area or if he becomes overly fatigued or finds it difficult to stay awake or becomes listless, has nausea, or vomiting then, an immediate trip via 911 would be in order. And BTW, I wouldn't drive him to the ER....you need to call 911 and have them transport because then, he'll be taken directly back to the triage area and receive immediate attention.

I wish your son well and am confident that everything will turn out fine.

If you found this information to be useful to use I'd appreciate some written feedback as well as your CLOSING THIS QUERY so that I may be properly credited for the case.

This query required 24 min. of physician specific time for review, research, and documentation of the final draft for envoy.

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