Travis's Accident

August 29 was a perfect Sunday. The kids were great at church, we came home and ate a yummy meal of chicken and cheese flautas and homemade Spanish rice and fruit. The August heat settled down and the use of air conditioning was unnecessary. We opened the windows in the house and enjoyed the breeze coming in. The boys went in the backyard to play with their lego cars on the trampoline. Ryan and I settled in the living room to watch TV. Rachel was in her room reading. It was quiet and relaxing in the home. All was well.

Outside, the boys were sitting on the trampoline, not jumping. They were sitting across from each other rolling their cars back and forth one to another. Trent asked Travis to scoot back to make more room between them. He did, not realizing he was already at the edge of the trampoline. He scotted off the trampoline, fell back, onto a cement brick paver. We heard a crack. A familiar sound if you are cracking an egg in your hand to cook breakfast with, but a horrifying sound when you know no one is in the kitchen. That's when the instincts kicked in. Ryan thankfully has the instinct to heroically run into the scene of chaos without any thought. I freeze and tremble and want to run away and hide. I couldn't face what I knew in my heart: something really bad just happened.

Travis has autism. One of his challenges is he does not express pain easily. It appears he has a high pain tolerance, but I think it is more he has a low expression of pain. Not this time. Ryan scooped him up and brought him inside. He was conscious but writhing in pain. My instinct was to call an ambulance, but I didn't. I still am mad at myself to this day for not doing that. We discussed bringing him to the ER or to the Instacare. For some reason, we went to the Instacare since we had bad experiences at the ER in the past. Travis calmed down slightly. The doctors came and looked at him and scheduled a CT scan. We waited for 45 minutes in the waiting room and watched "Brother Bear" on the TV. Travis was talking about the movie, so it seemed like things were getting better. All the sudden, he projectile vomited and had a seizure. The nurses and doctors went in a flurry to assist him. It was not good. They gave him oxygen, he kept throwing up. They called for the ambulance. He kept seizing and his eyes were going different directions. I had never been in a situation this serious before. Now that I've been there, I learned a new side of me: I do not handle emergency situations well. I cry uncontrollably. I get faint. I throw up. I panic. Perhaps I would have been stronger if Ryan was not there, but since he was, I caved.

The paramedics came and intubated him to help him breathe. My mind raced with thoughts of how he was just fine, he was just talking about the movie we were watching. How did he go from that to barely breathing and unconcious? I also worried about his autism. He already has a neurological problem. What will having a traumatic brain injury do on top of that? I held to the small hope it would cure his autism (hope it was . . .) He was rushed to the ER. The ER we had past bad experiences with stepped up to the plate and did a quick and wonderful job. They were very worried about Travis. I couldn't look at him up close with all the wires and tubes in him. It was too much to take in at the time. The doctor calmly explained it was likely Travis needed to have surgery to relieve pressure on his brain. He said how the side of his head would be cut open and it was a major surgery to have. He needed to be life-flighted to Primary Children's in Salt Lake City.

Life-flight. This was serious. We prayed. Instincts kicked in again. Rachel and Trent were left home alone. I called my friend Jodi to pick them up and take care of them until I could get hold of my parents. My parents were at church and don't take their phones there. I called my brother Greg, because if there is anyone that can take fast action in a emergency situation, it is he. I called Ryan's parents on the drive down to the hospital, asking for their prayers and thoughts. They called his side of the family. It was a comfort to know my stress and worry could be shared and that I could be stronger for my little boy, because he needed me to be. I felt surrendered, knowing Travis was in the best hands he could be in. The nurses called to say he arrived about 20 minutes ahead of us. He woke up after his scan and was going "wild" with the tube down his throat and in his arms, so they had to sedate him more and give him more morphine for pain.

When we arrived, family and friends were there ahead of us. It was a comfort to see them. Their energy lifted me up. The doctors brought us in a room to explain he had a crack on the right side of his skull from his ear down to the back of his head. Ryan knows more details -I'll get him to add them in here. He did not need surgery. I can't remember why, but I won't complain. They wanted to observe him before doing the surgery. We waited all night while he slept in the ICU. In the morning, he stirred, threw up, and started to whisper. We were thrilled, because we weren't sure if he would have amnesia or verbal language when he awoke. He kept whispering, "Privay. Privacy. I want privacy." His request was odd, but then I realize he was naked under the covers and he didn't want the nurses and doctors to see. Yes, my Travis was back and all right. If his first request was privacy, then the request for legos and trains was not too far away.

We waited and watched. He was very weak. His head very soar. He was so tired and out of it that he didn't protest too much about being there. On the third day, he got sad and wanted to go home. It took a few hours to release him, but we got to come back home. At the hospital I got to witness all sorts of head injuries in children. One little boy was run over by a car backing out of the driveway. It went over his head. He survived, but had been in the hospital for weeks and still had many surgeries to do. He was grumpy, uncomfortable, and tired of playing with nurses. I could tell all he wanted was to go home, too. Another patient had a reaction to anesthesia and couldn't stop throwing up for hours. Other children flew in from around the country for routine surgeries on permanent problems. My heart ached for the parents. The color coded charts on the walls distinguised if a patient was a sudden accident (like Travis), planned visit, long term recovery, etc. I can't imagine being there for so long. Three days was long enough. We had weeks ahead of doctor visits, no school, no flipping, no spinning, no bike riding, no jumping, basiclly keeping a very active 6 year old walking and sitting only.

Many blessings came from the accident. If we had called the ambulance or went to the ER, he may not have siezed and had trouble breathing when he was with them and saved that for at home far from emergency care. He may have had loss of oxygen to his brain if that happened and I would be typing a different story. Family and friends stepped in and took care of us. Neighborhood kids came over to visit Travis. He is quite popular with the teenagers around here and they all watch out for him. They came over after school and brought him treats and watched "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" with him and laughed at his silly I-pod Touch games. We felt very loved as a family.

Travis still has autism. That's okay. He's delightful, smart, and funny. He gets frequent headaches and ear problems, but that goes with the territory of his injury. We cope and he keeps plugging away. We are all right.