The Missing Pieces

I thought I would update you all and clear up some missing pieces..

It was Don that called me that morning – JDs boss. All of JDs co-workers started calling in late and when one finally said to Don that she was late because she was stuck behind a wreck – it all clicked. JD was late and not answering his phone and that was just not like him.. if someone was in a wreck on the road to his work, it was probably him. Don sent one of them to find out what the car looked like that was involved in the accident and get back to him, but she called him back and said the officer on-site wouldn’t let her near it. He told her only that this was ‘not yet classified as a fatality accident’ and that the driver of the car involved was being taken to Brackenridge. Don left work to see for himself and that’s when he called me.

The hospital social worker that called met me at the front desk and again told me to stay calm and to breathe. She just kept saying that JDs injuries were ‘very serious but not life-threatening’ (a phrase that became increasingly confusing each time I heard it) but that we couldn’t see him until they were done stitching up his head.. she put us in a room to wait and said that she would come in soon and explain his ‘very serious’ injuries.

Eventually, she came back and blurted out a whole bunch of information that sounded like a big math problem: a clean break in C2 along with several small fractures in the same bone; fractures in T5 and T8; with most of the ribs on his right side broken and a head wound that required 21 stitches. I felt major panic that none of this would ever make sense and that I was going to miss something important because my brain was going a million miles a second and I didn’t know what any of that meant. The diagnosis in layman’s terms is that he broke his neck, back and ribs and cut his head open. There were several times that I thought I wished she had said it that way, but its probably a good thing she didn’t – I still can’t say that all out loud without getting a lump in my throat.

  

JD was in the hospital for 10 days – they initially put him in a TLSO brace and said he would stay in it anytime he was sitting up or standing; anytime he was laying down, I could take it off of him and he could wear a neck brace.

At JDs 2 week appointment, the doctor had ordered another set of xrays, and immediately sent him to get a CT scan. He called the next morning and said that he was referring him to a spine specialist because the break had shifted in such a way that he wanted more assistance from an expert.. within a few hours he had an appointment to meet with a neurosurgeon the next morning to be fitted for a halo brace in order to take away all mobility from his neck.

JD has been in the halo now for 2 weeks and has been told to expect to keep in on for 2-3 months. It is big, bulky, awkward and painful at times, but will keep his spinal column safe and the bone immobile for long enough to hopefully fuse it back together. It’s a wait-and-see game for now, but we do have a great neurosurgeon and a bigger-than-we-knew support system, and things certainly could be worse.

He’s my hero. He’s the strongest and bravest person I know. He has been the brightest spot in my life since the day I met him and this has only made him brighter.

Thank you all for your prayers and well-wishes and love. I had no idea so many people could come out of nowhere with exactly the right words that we needed, exactly when we needed them.