High Highs and Low Lows

We're on a roller coaster ride that we just can't get off of. But the beauty of a ride like this is the thrill of the highs far outweigh the lows.

It's been a mixed bag these last few days. We were minutes away from heading back to the hospital, and as much as I thought I'd never say this, I was longing to be back there. We left too soon and realized that too late. He pushed too hard and immediately felt the consequences. So we scaled back. Way back. And we're both okay with that now.

There is no longer a push to get up and around on crutches. He's laying low at home, getting wheeled from his bed to the couch and back in his fancy new wheelchair. They've adjusted his pain meds, and he's resting comfortably. Eating a little, sleeping a lot, and patiently waiting for his doctor's appointment Tuesday where he'll hopefully be cleared for the big surgery on Thursday.

So the physical aspect is as under control as it can be, but the emotional aspect is starting to take its toll. Not on Mark, he's frustrated and ocassionally angry, but he doesn't let it show. But the girls, well, they're starting to crack.

It's like I've said before, there are two little girls in my life that make me crazy eight days a week, but who stole my heart long ago. I want all of the absolute best things in life for them. I want them to have everything their little hearts desire plus some. And I never want them to be lonely or sad or hurt. And I certainly don't want to be the cause of any of those things. Mark either.

The other night, as I tucked her into bed, Cora realized that Mark would not be able to attend the much anticipated Father/Student Breakfast the next morning. She was heartbroken, begging for Daddy to just try to go. All the other kids would be there with their daddies and it just wasn't fair.

She couldn't control her tears, and so she asked me if I would rock her. I sat there at the edge of her bed, gathered her in my arms and pulled her in tight. She burried her head in my chest and silently sobbed. I did my best to protect her from seeing my own tears as I fumbled for the right words to say to her and, as usual, failed. I didn't have answers for her "whys."

Why did this happen? Why can't Daddy be normal? Why does everything have to be different?

It's hard to explain when you yourself do not understand. So I simply told her that we couldn't answer all those questions now, but what we could do was be as strong as possible for Daddy. If we just hugged him and loved him and stayed positive for him, he would heal quicker. But she's 8. And she doesn't want to have to be the strong one. And so she cried herself to sleep.

We ended that day on a low, determined that the inevitable high the next day would cause us to forget the tears.

And it did.

When Home's Not So Sweet

I should be overjoyed that he's not lying in a hospital bed, right? I should be jumping for joy. Doing happy dances. Basking in the fresh air that can only be found outside the walls of that hospital room.

But I'm not.

I'm questioning my decision to encourage this move. I'm regretting my push to get his surgeon on board. He's in so much pain right now. So much pain. After a restless night, this morning was rough on him. He had to crutch around for a few minutes to prove he was mobile enough to leave, and the pain from that was so excruciating that it wiped him out for hours. I knew then that I should have put my foot down and forced him to stay put another night. But he was so eager and so excited to be home.

So home we are. And he's in a world of hurt. More pain than he's experienced since the accident. His suffering is so severe, it made him cry out in pain. That never happens. Never.

He didn't scream when the accident happened. He didn't scream when he tried to reset what he thought was a dislocated knee himself. He didn't scream when he drove himself back to the truck on the same ATV that had rolled over him. He didn't even scream as his leg bounced around as they headed the 20 miles back down the mountain on the rocky, 4-wheel drive trail to get to the main road.

So hearing him scream made me want to immediately throw him in the car and drive him straight back to the security of hospital. But he simply won't have that. Sometimes he's too tough for his own good. And sometimes, in my haste to hurry his healing along, I'm rushing what cannot be rushed.

This, above all, will be a test of patience.

Blowin' This Popsicle Stand

Mark's busy ordering up a drug cocktail and I've just finished scarfing down a homemade chicken pot pie that's so good it'll make you cry (thanks Mikelle). He'll fall asleep and I'll watch some Boy Meets World reruns, stare at the beautiful baskets being delivered and read some trashy gossip magazines. If things get crazy, as they usually do in Rm516, I might even floss my teeth. This is our life.

But not for long.

We're busting out of this joint.

Well, fingers crossed.

Mark's surgeon just stopped by. The very surgeon I begged and pleaded with after last night's not-so-spectacular surgery. It was a few minutes pre-pity party when I told him I really felt Mark would heal so much better from the comfort of his own home, where he could watch DVRed episodes of Pawn Stars and stare longingly at the garage full of bikes he couldn't ride (okay so I left that last part out). So could he pretty please head home in between surgeries while we wait for the swelling to go down. He looked at me as if I had just asked him to sneeze with his eyes open (I guess my pouty face doesn't have quite the same effect it did when I was 5), and gave me a laundry list of things that had to occur before he'd let that happen.

Consistently maintain adequate oxygen levels without being on oxygen: check.

Get his blood sugar levels stabilized: check.

Get him off an IV without showing signs of dehydration: check.

Eliminate IV pain medication and switch to oral pain meds: check.

Prove to physical therapist he could transition from bed to chair and use crutches to get up one step without touching his injured leg on anything or placing any weight on it (this would ensure he could get from wheelchair to car seat and then up the one step into our front door): check.

Because today was a ridiculously good day at our home away from home, he blew through that list (which he of course did without knowing there was a list, because it's possible I purposely neglected to mention the list to him for fear our exit wouldn't materialize). And so when his surgeon peeked his head into the room tonight, once again proclaiming Mark had a "World Class Break," he also said, depending on how tonight & tomorrow day goes, he might give orders to have home health come out to our house and let us temporarily check out of Hotel St. Lukes until next week!

I'm already packing.

Reality Bites

Today was the best day yet, until it wasn't.

We woke up to an optimistic surgeon who had high hopes for his surgery today. Perhaps, just maybe, they'd be able to knock out 2 surgeries in 1. There was a light at the end of the tunnel. He was happy. I was happy. We almost had an exit strategy. Almost.

Hope: Head into surgery to close fasciotomy & find swelling had gone down enough that a skin graft was not necessary.

Reality: There was still so much swelling they could only close halfway down the calf & then they had to skin graft the rest closed.

Hope: Remove the External Fixator, therefore allowing him to get a shiny set of crutches and no longer be a slave to his hospital bed.

Reality: He still has a box leg.

Hope: Things go so perfectly in the first surgery that they are able to insert the plates & hardware and bone graft then, therefore eliminating a need for a second surgery.

Reality: No 2in1 surgery. No bone graft. No resetting any bones.

Hope: We'd be outta this frigid hospital room and back home by Thursday, never to see the inside of a hospital again for quite some time!

Reality: I'm getting my address labels updated with the hospital's mailing address.

So back in that godawful waiting room I wanted to kick the wall and punch the surgeon. And then punch the wall and kick the surgeon. That stupid empty waiting room does things to me, like make me start using stupid in place of a more sophisticated adjective. So I threw a massive pity party for one. And cried. Again. I was just so sad to think about him waking up with such high expectations, only to have them shot to hell; only to learn absolutely nothing about the surgery had gone as we'd hoped. I didn't want to have to deliver any more bad news.

But of course, because I'm married to seriously the raddest guy ever, he took it like a champ. He said, "We can deal with that. We can make that work." And just like that my pity party had been crashed.

So in honor of Mark's stellar attitude, I give you the top ten things I'm grateful for today:

1. Dry shampoo. Weirdest stuff ever, but so cool. (Thanks Kim!)
2. Men in uniform (and not just because they're hot). The ones who filtered in non-stop today to keep his spirits up and especially the groggy one beside me who won't be wearing a uniform for many months, but who brings honor to the badge still the same.
3. A free eat-all-the-crap-food-you-want pass. My body might be rebelling, bloating and screaming at me that one more Sour Patch Kid might send me over the edge, but I don't feel a smidge of guilt.
4. Friends who deliver healthy food to me so I don't have to cash in the free eat-all-the-crap-food-you-want pass at every meal.
5. People who love my kids and hug my kids and support my kids when I can't be there myself to do it.
6. Perfecting the art of peeing sideways into a bottle. Him, not me. Although since we're stuck here for a few more days, I might as well give it a whirl.
7. Nurses who say, "I'm so glad I got assigned my favorite room again," and mean it. (Seriously it's a party up in this joint. Have you not been here? What are you waiting for? Fireworks start at 11)
8. Dark chocolate Raisinets. And candy corn. And Sixlets. And Ghirardelli chocolate. And no judging me. Refer to #3.
9. You. Yes, YOU. Because you're awesome. And if you're reading this it probably means you've touched our lives over the course of the last few days with your words, your prayers, your food, your help or your general thoughtfulness.
10. A surgery free of major complications. No blood clots. No coding. No scares. Just a little dose of reality that, and I quote, "We can deal with!"

The Facts of Life

Fact: Mark was lucky. He was not wearing a helmet, was crushed by a massive machine on steep, rocky terrain and miraculously did not hit his head. No concussion. Not even a headache. He does have road rash, cuts, bruises and gashes, but no internal injuries they've found as of this point. His leg took the entire brunt of the impact each time the 4-wheeler rolled. He broke both sides of the the tibia and both sides of the fibula in multiple places. He shattered the end of the tibia into tons of pieces that are currently floating in his leg. He will eventually have a bone graft to replace that portion of bone.

Fact: Mark was hunting deep in the back country when the accident occurred. Because of that, there was an almost 5 hour delay from the time he was injured, to the time he entered the ER. Possibly because of this delay, he was diagnosed with Compartment Syndrome & whisked away to surgery. Compartment Syndrome is a life/limb threatening condition, defined as the compression of nerves, blood vessels, and muscle inside a compartment (the leg in his case). This leads to tissue death from lack of oxygenation due to the blood vessels being compressed by the raised pressure within the leg. In layman's terms: the swelling was acting as a tourniquet and rapidly killing his foot and leg. It may take months before they know the extent of the damage the Compartment Syndrome caused.

Fact: They performed an emergency Fasciotomy where they essentially sliced open both sides of his leg and allowed the muscles to swell out the sides. His leg remains open like that right now. During this surgery they also attached an External Fixator to his leg. They drilled screws in above the knee and above the ankle and then attached carbon fiber rods to each end. That contraption just serves to keep the break from shifting further but is not in place to heal the break. They have not yet attempted to reset his bones.

Fact: Cora walked in to see Mark for the 1st time, glanced at him and proclaimed, "Hmmm. Daddy has a box leg now."

Fact: He has 2 surgeries scheduled so far this week. On Tuesday they will attempt to stretch his skin back over the muscle & close his leg up. The doctors have warned us the swelling was so severe, they will most likely have to do a skin graft to close the wound. It is our hope that his swelling will have died down to the point where a graft is not necessary. On Wednesday they will finally begin to tackle his break. During this surgery they will check for ligament damage and assess the soft tissue. If the soft tissue is healed enough, they will insert plates, rods and screws and do a bone graft. Both of those surgeries are contingent on how much his swelling goes down today.

Fact: This picture is gross.

Fact: Yesterday morning Mark stopped breathing. His fever spiked. His blood pressure dropped. I saw fear in the nurses/doctors' eyes and so I began to panic. After the longest half hour of my life, they were able to stabilize him and return his vitals to normal. They still do not know what caused it.

Fact: Yesterday started out rocky, really rocky, but turned out to be a fantastic day. Mark was awake, alert and very coherent (well, as coherent as a heavily medicated patient can be). He took visitors on and off throughout the day and is sleeping like a baby as I type this. There was some new numbness in the foot below the break that has his team of doctors concerned, but they are monitoring it and will alter his care plan if necessary.

Fact: After my mother's suggestion, Mark would like me to ask the nurses if they can put Diet Mt. Dew in his IV line.

Fact: I sat down to type all about the negative aspects of hospital living (the fact that I'm awake at 3am might attest to the comfort level of the "guest bed"), but I can't even bring myself to complain about the rubbery chicken & chalk-like mashed potatoes. Because of your thoughts, your kindness, your prayers and your generosity, our hearts/this room/our lives are so full. I get choked up just thinking about the outpouring of love and support. At one point yesterday, I held a phone in each hand and had a laptop in front of me, attempting to coordinate 5 different meal offers just for last night's dinner. To say we are being well taken care of would be the understatement of the century. I'm not sure how to adequately express our gratitude. We feel so loved. So very very loved. A million thank yous to each of you.

Here and Now

I lowered the bed rail, shifted the IV and oxygen lines and nestled myself against his warm body. He draped his arm around my shoulder, acknowledging me beside him and then fell back asleep. I knew I should pull myself away from his fever-ravaged body and crawl back over to the cold hospital bed in the corner, but I couldn't bring myself to leave him. The rise and fall of his chest was calming me, each breath reminding me he was alive, safe, whole.

It had been 12 hours since I got the call and 10 hours since I sat alone in the dark waiting room, anticipating any word from the surgeon. When the surgeon emerged and spoke, he was very matter of fact, all business. The words he spoke were foreign and alarming, delivered in such a blunt and honest way they sucked the air from my chest: He is a lucky one. A few hours longer and he would have lost his foot. Long road. Multiple surgeries. Relearning to walk again. No estimated recovery period.

The doors swung shut behind his rushed exit and I glanced around. On weekends they only operate one O.R. unless they have emergencies. He was the only one in surgery and I was the only one in the sterile waiting room. The TV buzzed in the background as I mindlessly thumbed through a 6-month-old copy of Sports Illustrated. The contrast between the athletes displayed on the glossy pages, standing strong on sturdy, muscular legs and the memory of my broken husband, unable to muster the strength to form words into sentences as he lay tangled in a web of wires and monitors, broke me. All morning I had busied myself with logistics. Child A to be shuttled to soccer game. Child B to spend the night at friends. Keys to truck can be found here. Text with status updates to family sent. Sprinklers shut off. Busyness masked the severity of the situation.

I exhaled the breath I had unintentionally been holding and began sobbing.

I couldn't shut it off. The fear was suffocating. The limitations of my strength hit me.  I am a powerful woman because Mark believes me to be one. He is the perfect blend of husband and father; provider and supporter. He is solid and brave when I am meek and scared. I am strong because the man he is allows me to be. I must dig deep and return the favor. But how? I couldn't even keep it together for a few hours.

I let the tears flow freely, dropping to dampen the powerful paper images as they littered the magazine pages. I allowed myself to cry in gratitude towards those who had quickly, and without request, rallied around me. I cried for fear of the unknown, for all the terrifying what-ifs. I cried for the look of panic in my 8-year-old's eyes as she overheard phone conversations I could not shield her from. I cried for the harsh realization that life as we know it can potentially change forever with one simple phone call. I cried until I could not cry any more. And then I wiped my eyes, straightened myself up and walked through the waiting room doors, intent on being the strong support my husband so desperately needed.