Dad e-mails

On Tuesday my Dad had his second surgery. His first surgery was within the first few hours of him being brought into the hospital and was on his right leg. Apparently the leg injury was really bad, the bottom of his leg was almost completely severed and he had lost a lot of blood out of this wound. They operated on this first in order to save him from having to have the bottom of his leg amputated, and he now has metal plates holding the bones in place, as well as what looks like scaffolding on the outside of right shin. The second surgery that he had on Tuesday afternoon was to remove the fragments of the burst vertebrae in the middle of his back. A thoracic surgeon had to make an incision on the left side of his rib cage, push his left lung out of the way, then the neurosurgeon removed the fragments through this incision. He then placed a titanium "bracket" where this vertebrae was. This will stay in him forever, but the neurosurgeon said that this should not affect his ability to do things in the future. Yesterday we waited to find out if he would need a second spinal surgery, and he did, so he had that this morning. During the second
surgery the surgeon went in through the back and removed some other fragments. The first surgery took 4 hours, the second one took about 3 hours.

He is still on a breathing machine because he is heavily sedated. His second spinal surgery was completed this afternoon (Thursday) at about noon, and I am guessing that they will begin to remove him from the sedation medications and the breathing machine over the next couple of days. They really need him to be awake so that he can tell them where it hurts. He has been able to open his eyes and reply to simple commands, but you can tell that is a struggle for him to do things like move his arms and legs. He has moved both his right and left hands, and he seems very able to move his left leg. He has not yet moved his right leg nor his right toes, but the doctors do not know if this is due to paralysis of that leg, or because of the bad injury.He also has fractures of the pelvis and a fractured rib. When they did the first spinal surgery I think that they said that they needed to remove one of the ribs on his left side. His fractured rib is on his right side.

His neck is fine, I think that the bruises on his brain are a non-issue, his spinal cord is OK. Really, we should be happy that everything is fixable (hopefully).

I haven't heard the results of the guy that hit hims blood test yet. The detective said that he would be surprised if it came back clean(there was no alcohol, but there will probably be Vicodin and other prescription drugs). He is a former meth addict.

Dad's brothers arrived from England on Tuesday and are leaving on Sunday.

My Mum has been at the hospital every day. I was there the first 5 days, but now I am back at work. I am going to go there after work, and I will send you anymore updates this evening.

Again, please forward this to anyone that would like to be updated, and I will send more soon!

Love, Annabelle


I went to the hospital after school yesterday. Dad's second spinal surgery went well, and when I got there, he was more awake than he had been at any point since the accident. They were slowly taking him off the Versa (the sedative), with the hopes of removing the breathing tube today (Friday). He had an X-Ray yesterday afternoon, mainly to check for any movement of his pelvic/pubis bone fracture. He is still following commands, can move his left/right arms, and left leg, but grimaces in pain when he tries to move his right leg. Apparently he did wiggle his right toes yesterday morning, before either my Mum or I got there, so that's a good sign.

At 6:30 last night my Mom left, and I stayed with Lee (my boyfriend) to eat. We can't go into the ICU between 6:30 and 8:30 because of shift change, so we waited until 8:30, and then I went back in to check on him. He was fast asleep, snoring, and the nurse told me that they had attempted to take him off the breathing machine that night, but his breaths had become really fast and it looked as if he was stressed, so they decided to wait until today and let him sleep through the night by increasing his sedative. My Mom will be going back this morning, and I will be going back this evening.

We have heard from multiple nurses and doctors that everything is fixable, but the healing process is going to be very long. He will probably have to go to Wound Care for his leg once he is discharged from the ICU, and then maybe spend some time in the regular hospital ward. He will have to undergo a lot of physical therapy, but I agree that he's not going to want to be stuck in a bed for any longer than he needs to be, and I think that will motivate him to put up with the pain and get moving as soon as possible. He isn't one to feel sorry for himself, which is a good thing, because he could very easily just give up if he was!

Love, Annabelle

Yes, the spinal surgery is done. We are waiting to see if he will need pelvic surgery. We know that he will definitely need more surgery on his right leg. But yes, the dangerous and extensive surgeries are done, and now he can hopefully start to heal.

I'm not sure if snoring is a good sign or not, but he seemed more relaxed than he did before.

Love, Annabelle

He was very awake today. He is now completely off the sedatives, and they attempted twice to take him off of the breathing machine, but he didn't "pass" the breathing test. They made him breathe into some sort of machine to see if he could take deep enough breaths, but he couldn't, so they are letting him rest tonight and will try again in the morning. We were able to talk to him since he is now completely awake. He seemed to be comfortable (he's still on pain meds), but grimaced every now and then. It was difficult because we kept asking him questions (Where does it hurt? Are you comfortable? etc.) but he had a hard time communicating with us. We watched him to try to write some things down, but he was too weak to hold a pen. My Mum said that
he got emotional and started crying when she told him about all of the people that were concerned for him. There are no new surgeries planned, as far as we know. His leg will be given a few more days to heal before a second surgery is done on it, and we haven't heard about his pelvis. I really hope that he can come off of the breathing machine tomorrow, because apparently after 10 days, they have to do a tracheotomy and take the breathing tube out of his mouth and insert it through a hole in his throat instead.

Love, Annabelle