"Head"line News!

Hi everyone! Mom here. We thought everyone might like to see some pix of Dad's latest boo-boo.

A week ago Wednesday (on Sept. 10), Steve's blood pressure took a sudden dive - and so did he - face first on the tile floor. The night before had been a bad night for his RLS - not much sleep, up and down most of the night - pretty exhausting. Finally, at 6:30 AM he used the bathroom and was heading back to bed when I heard "THE THUD." I jumped out of bed and found him face down, arms at his sides, out cold - with blood gushing from his nose. Amazingly, I didn't panic, but went into "intensity mode". I don't know if the force of the fall knocked the wind out of him or what, but he stopped breathing for a few moments, so I (somehow) turned him over (which, thinking about it now was probably not a very smart thing to do ...) and mashed down hard on his rib cage a bunch of times to get him breathing again. He took a gasp - finally - (which seemed to be a long time to me) and I ran to get a towel to put pressure on his bleeding eyebrow. He came around enough (sort of) to hold the rag on his eye himself, which gave me time to call 9-1-1 and get help on the way.

When he started asking the same questions in the same order over and over, I knew he had a concussion - again (remember the mountain bike header?) and I just kept answering him over and over until the EMT's arrived. They checked him out carefully, loaded him on a back board with a cervical collar and hauled him away to Emanuel Hospital around 7 AM or so. I packed a few things I thought we might need (like insurance info, Steve's blackberry to contact his boss, the Stake Directory, etc.).

Steve doesn't remember much of this - not even the ride to the hospital. I arrived at the hospital around 7:30, and waited ... and waited. His full-body CT scan and echo cardiogram took a while. By the time I saw him again, he was still in and out of consciousness (he doesn't remember too much about the ER room, either). It turns out that he broke his nose (the actual bone part - not the cartilage) on both sides, had to have 5 stitches in his left eyebrow, got a fat lip, and suffered a concussion. His left eye turned black and swelled up really quickly, and his right eye started
to turn black a day or two later. Then they both turned blue/green/yellow - the whole rainbow stage - as he healed. He looked pretty scary for about a week!

Well, needless to say, my prayers were constant - and answered! I never felt panicked once. The Spirit really guided me and kept me calm, reassuring me that Steve was fine, considering his injuries.

The doctors checked Steve over pretty thoroughly: besides the CT scan and echo cardiogram, he had an ultrasound of the carotid arteries, blood tests, urinalysis, with blood pressure and heart rate monitors going the whole time. His blood pressure remained quite low - 100 over 57-60 or less - so the doctors were pretty cautious about letting him get up or go home. They opted to keep Steve overnight for observation. All his tests turned out normal - go figure...

YIPES! What a day! Thankfully, Steve heals very quickly, and now about 10 days later, both eyes look almost normal (color-wise that is). His stitches are out, but he still has a blue knot on his eyebrow where the stitches were. And he still has headaches off and on due to his broken nose. He went back to work after getting out of the hospital (working from home the next day), and has been fine ever since. "Just another battle scar" to add to the list! Ah, well! It all just adds character!

All in all, we were very blessed that his injuries weren't any worse, and that I was home when he went down.

Thanks to all of you for your prayers and concern. It's wonderful to have a loving family like you to support us!