the post in which i explain details about the accident and share some photos

Jim had been airlifted to UMC, which is quite far from our house. His ER nurse called me to let me know my husband had been in a motorcycle accident, had an open fracture on his right knee and a subdural hematoma that "wasn't that bad, really." Oh, and that when I got there, I was to call him by his trauma name, Utah IY.

Just call me Mrs. Utah.


45 minutes after I got the call, when I walked into the ER, I walked straight to his bed - I recognized his toes sticking out from under the blankets.



I honestly thought I'd be bringing him in a big ol' leg cast home, if not that day, then certainly by Monday. But his injuries were far worse than I imagined.



He had no idea where he was or why. He knew who I was, remembered our kids, called it "a crappy weekend," but would immediately start talking like he was at work. He asked me to "get Steve to straighten this thing out," as he pointed to his broken knee. He asked me to move the cloud to the electrical socket - I figured out he wanted me to close the curtain in the ER room. But still, everyone told me the head injury wasn't a huge concern, so I tried not to worry.



I met with one of the deputies who was on scene after the accident. He said Jim ran nearly head-on into a rock face on the side of Mt. Lemmon. No one saw it happen, he said, and did Jim have any recollection about the accident?


Seriously, officer, he's laying, bloodied, broken and semi-conscious on a gurney, and he thinks he's at work, fixing airplanes. He has no idea he was even in an accident.

No sir. He doesn't.



Later I learned of another injury - he suffered a blown-out orbital floor. Basically, he busted his lower right eye socket. He went into surgery that night to repair it and clean the knee out. The knee repair would have to wait because it was too swollen to work on that night.



He spent the next 4 days in ICU because that subdural hematoma ended up causing a lot more concern than was expected. It was the morning after the crash, when I was alone in the room with my husband when he began to seize. That seizure seemed to last forever. The nurses had to bag him to help him breathe through it. I thought I was watching my husband die.

After it was all over, one of the nurses puts his arm around my shoulders and says, "That was kind of scary, wasn't it?"

You think?! Yeah. A WHOLE LOT MORE than kind of, buddy.

Only it was actually more like me crying, shaking, and nodding.

Yeah. ICU was no fun at all.

He had to wait until Monday, 2 days after the accident, for his knee surgery. He had been in so much pain. My heart broke every time they had to move him or every time he'd wake from a deep sleep, his face all twisted, and he'd reach for his knee, screaming (but quietly as the trauma and airway tubes had affected his vocal cords), he was in so much pain. I prayed this surgery would get him well on the road to recovery.

He ended up with a plate and 8 huge screws to repair the tibial plateau fracture. He lost 1/3 of his kneecap in the accident. The surgeon told me she just filed down the rough edges of what was left of it for him. She also told me that the "open" part of the fracture was a degloving injury. You don't want to google that. Trust me.

Yikes.

But here's a side view of how she repaired the tibia fracture. This was taken about 7 weeks post-surgery.

Just call me Mrs. Bionic Man.

We learned of yet another injury. He dislocated 2 knuckles on his left hand and suffered some fairly extensive tendon damage.

Wednesday after the accident, he was moved to a post-surgical room. The brain injury was still manifesting itself in the strangest ways - and would continue to do so for another week-and-a-half or so. When asked where he was, he'd answer in Houston, at work, in El Paso, or my favorite, "in limbo." When asked what year it was, he answered 1988, 1999, 2000, and 1000 (?!). The doctors wanted us to discuss the accident and the broken leg with him; talk about recent happenings with him. Here's how that ususally went:

Jim: So are we gonna stay here, or are you ready to head home?

Me: Honey, you've been in a motorcycle accident. You have to stay here in the hospital.

J: Oh. Really?

M: Yeah. You've got a badly broken knee.

J: Really?

M: Yeah.

J: Huh. So are you ready to go then?

We had that conversation several times a day for several days.

So can I worry about his brain injury yet?

I had to pick up Jim's things from the Sherrif's Office. They still had his clothes, shoes, backpack, and helmet. I shook uncontrollably - I still couldn't get rid of the images my mind held about what had happened to him that day, and I knew that seeing these things would most likely solidify a lot of that. Add to that, one of the deputies told me that I'd understand how bad the accident was when I saw his helmet. When I got back out to the car, I couldn't help but open the box - I had to see the helmet that saved his life.

Admittedly, it was nowhere near as damaged as I was expecting.

Thank God he wore that helmet and not his dinky plastic one.

My next task was to see his bike. I didn't have to for any reason other than I just needed to see it for me, so I could get to healing after all of this, too.

The left side of the bike, even though it was the side the bike ended up on, was virtually untouched, save for a couple of scratches.

The right side, however,

was missing a faring, had a bent-to-broken foot peg, and some pretty extensive damage all the way around.

Yeah. Not so unscathed.

I was really glad my dad went with me to see the bike.

Thursday afternoon Jim was transferred to a rehab hospital. They put him in the wing where they keep TBI (traumatic brain injury) patients. His bed was rigged to alarm if he tried to get out of it. The doors to that wing of the hospital were locked - you could go in, but needed a nurse to unlock them if you wanted to leave.

It was kinda like Hotel California.

But I digress. The reason for all of that was because brain injury patients have a flight tendency. In the coming days, I'd learn my husband was no different. He even disassembled his knee brace on three occasions.

They told me it would be a good 3-4 months for Jim to make a full mental recovery.

How about now - can I be worried about that brain injury now?

The rehab hospital was a long and difficult process for both of us. He had extensive therapy - 3 hours a day of physical, speech/cognitive, and occupational therapy. Each hour would wipe him out to the point of total physical exhaustion. The TBI brought on bouts of paranoia and fear - he was so confused for so long. My heart just ached for my husband.

Then somewhere, somehow, it all started coming back. And suddenly, about 2 weeks after the accident, he was showing "significant improvements." Everything pointed to a miraculous recovery.

Unfortunately, this also meant that Jim was now acutely aware of the situation and his surroundings. The hospital became his prison. That final week was the worst, but we tried to make the best of it.

We got snuggly together a lot.

This was right after he had the stitches that held his eye closed after the orbital-repair surgery removed. Still lots of swelling...and lots of other facial stitches.

We acted like we were in 7th grade again.

No noses were actually picked that night.

We let the rehab hospital know what we really thought of it.

And then we got some wonderful news.

Jim was coming home.

On his birthday no less.

That called for kissy-faces.

The day after his birthday, he was supposed to go in for the hand surgery. However, he ended up in the ER again - this time for a blood clot in his good leg. He'd been complaining of unusual pain in that leg that the rehab folks dismissed as muscle pain. Yeah. Except that it was an enormous blood clot. He had to start a 3 month regimen of blood thinners, and we had to postpone that hand surgery until the latter part of November.

And now, almost 12 weeks out of the accident -

• He attends physical therapy twice a week
• Speech/cognitive therapy - coming to an end
• He's walking!
• And I'm still saying thankful prayers because my husband is alive.