The Long Road Begins

I just came from the hospital. The accident happened on the way home from work. No one knows any details about the accident but they do know that Alex is very sick. We all arrived at the hospital about 9:00 p.m. Wednesday night and they ushered us to a quiet room. We waited for some word. The only person to speak with us was the chaplain who said that this was very serious.

Alex had been driving north on I-69 when his truck went off the road and flipped. He was thrown from the truck and had to be Life-Lined to Methodist Hospital with severe head injuries.

He was in radiology but was expected to be moved to a Neuro-ICU bed. At 9:30 the chaplain led the family upstairs. When we arrived, we found that he wasn't in the room yet and we had to wait. The chaplain led us to another small "quiet room".

It seemed like a very long time before someone came to speak with us but it was less than an hour before they had him in the room and a doctor came to speak with us.

She said that he was in very serious condition. The bones in his face had been fractured in the wreck and this had caused bleeding. They had to embolize the artery leading to his face to stop the blood. Some of the blood had gone into his lungs and this was causing problems with his breathing. He had suffered a trauma to his head but there was no way to know the full extent of the injury until after they stablized the remainder of his body.

She explained that his face was very swollen and that he wouldn't look like Alex. They were still getting him set up in the room and would allow the family to come back in a short time. After she left, the chaplain led us to another, bigger room where we could all have a seat and wait.

After a while, a nurse came to take the immediate family members to see Alex. Of course, everyone else in the room followed them down the hall and paced in front of the ICU doors.

A neuro assessment was performed with the family at the bedside. Alex didn't move anything at the command of the nurses. When they pinched his arms and legs, he only moved his left arm and his right fingers.

The family has been told that Alex is very sick and this is an hour-by-hour watch. At one point, the doctor explained that his systems were working against each other. They couldn't do everything they needed for his brain because his lungs were so bad. They couldn't do everything they needed for his lungs because of the brain injury. His oxygen sats were off because his lungs had bruises and contusions. They had to fix this but he wasn't responding very well.

The family is in shock. I heard it several times, from several people, "This is all just a bad dream".