Last week Ryan gave us a good scare! He went on a bike ride with his good friend, Asiel, and right near the end of their ride, he crashed, and crashed badly! The best we can piece together is that Ryan's front bike tire got wedged in a crack between the track on the trax line and it threw him with a lot of force into the pavement. He landed face first, on the left side of his face. His friend heard the crash and turned around to see Ryan sprawled on the ground, unconscious, convulsing, and bleeding. A passerby called 911 and Asiel called me. He asked if Ryan had ever had a seizure because he had crashed and it looked like he was having a seizure. I think the life drained out of me listening to that call. I hurried out of the house and started driving. I didn't know exactly where they were or which hospital they would take him to, but I knew the general area they were in so I just started driving. About 10 minutes into my drive Asiel called me again and said the paramedics were there and had questions for me. They asked about Ryan's medical history and allergies and such and said that he was awake and responding now, but was very confused and repetitive. They told me to meet them at the Jordan Valley Medical Center emergency room.
We think this is the offending crevice.
Ryan's blood puddle. Eek!
I hurried to the hospital, bawling through a phone call to a neighbor on my way, and beat the ambulance to the hospital. I didn't know what to expect. All of the worst case scenarios were running through my head. Would he be paralyzed? Would his brain recover? I had no idea what his condition was. When the ambulance was arriving the nurse walked me back to the trauma room so I could be there when Ryan arrived. They wheeled him in he was covered in blood. His head was bandaged and bloody, his face was scraped up, his shoulder was torn up and bleeding as well. They handed me his bloody helmet and his cut-up bike jersey and got him settled on the hospital bed. The doctors were asking Ryan questions and he was responding, but its like his brain was working in slow motion and the responses were slow and slurred. The paramedics told me how he was doing, not much change from their last update, he was still repeating himself and had no idea what had happened. The doctors informed me they would get him to CT as soon as possible to check his head, neck, and belly for any fractures or bleeding. After the bustling subsided Ryan noticed me in the room for the first time and reached his hand out for me. I was so relieved that he knew who I was! I rushed over and held his hand and he asked me what happened. I told him he had crashed his bike, he was pretty in and out still at that point and seemed to doze off. Just about a minute later he looked at me again and asked me what happened again, it was obvious he had no recollection of us having the conversation already. I was really worried. He asked me probably 5 more times before they got him back to CT. Asiel and Ryan's parents arrived while he was gone and I filled them in on what I knew. By the time Ryan got back from CT he seemed more aware and started to remember our conversations. I was very relieved by that. Our Bishop and my parents also came to the hospital at that point and spoke with Ryan, and they all even teased back and forth a bit. They finally got Ryan some pain meds and rewrapped his wounds in clean bandages. The bishop, Ryan's dad and Asiel then gave Ryan a blessing. (The weird part about all of this is that Ryan seemed quite aware and able to communicate during this time, but he has zero memory of any of what went on at the scene of the accident or at Jordan Valley now.)
The doctors came in and said it appeared that Ryan had several fractures in his face, but that his neck and back were clear, and they finally allowed Ryan to take the neck brace off. He had been fighting with the nurses the whole time to get it off, he was so uncomfortable with it on. The doctors were consulting with Neurologists and Eye specialists from the University of Utah hospital on what steps to take next. They finally decided that because of the locations of the fractures, the large wound on Ryan's head, the amount of time he was unconscious at the scene (15 minutes!), and how long it took him to be lucid, that he needed to be tranferred to the University Hospital for observation and to be seen by all the specialists in person. Ryan was not happy to have another ambulance ride, and really unhappy when they informed him that the U hospital insisted that he have a neck brace put back on for the transport and evaluation in their ER.
Shortly after he arrived in the ER.
His sad bike jersey.
Started to wake up, and bruise up.
One the ambulance arrived to transport him, I got in the car and headed up to the U. I had to wait in the waiting room in the ER while he arrived and was evaluated by the trauma team, they are much more intense at the U! They finally called me back and gave me an update, they needed more scans to evaluate the fractures and clear his spine again, they didn't trust Jordan Valley. haha! So they got Ryan another CT, and he waited in a trauma area for the specialists to come check him out. They finally got the ENT to come check him and stitch up his head. They had left the wound open so it could be fully evaluated. Yuck. The wound was quite deep so they had to stitch all the layers of skin, they don't count the inner ones, but he had 8 on the top. I was actually surprised how small the cut looked when they got it stitched, it seemed much bigger before! Ryan was super uncomfortable, he still had the neck brace and was laying on a stiff back board. We finally convince the nurse to get the backboard out, but he had to keep the neck brace on a lot longer than he wanted to. After hours and hours in the trauma area, Ryan finally got a private room on the Emergency Care Unit to stay the night for observation. It was about 1am by then, and James' blood sugar wasn't obeying at home, so I left and headed home to help James and get a few hours of sleep.
I headed back to the hospital as soon as I got the kids up and over the Grandma's. When I walked in to Ryan's room I was surprised to see he STILL had the neck brace on, and he was NOT happy about it. He told me to go out and talk to the nurse and tell them he was going home whether they liked it or not! I told him I wasn't going to do that, and he wasn't too happy with me either. He was sore and cranky and exhausted. The pain meds they'd given him in the night had made his sick, and he was really dizzy anytime he moved. The different specialists were still discussing and evaluating Ryan's scans. They finally told us that they weren't too worried about the fractures on his face, they would look at them again in a couple weeks when the swelling had gone down, but they were worried that one of the arteries in Ryan's neck looked weird in the scans and could have a tear, so they needed to do yet another test. They gave Ryan and MRI, and we waited some more. FINALLY the neurologist and trauma surgeons came in and said that everything looked ok and Ryan could take the neck brace off. It still took a while after that for all of the doctors to weigh in and decide we could go home. We finally got word that we could leave at around 10pm. Ryan got up as fast as he could and got dressed (which was still very slow), but he could not wait to get out of there!
We've been home about a week and a half now. Its been a slow road. Ryan has been dealing with lots of dizziness and headaches. The aches and pains were to be expected, and he was super sleepy the first few days, which was good, his brain needed all the down time it can get to heal. He is feeling quite a bit better lately on some levels, his headaches are more manageable, and the pain in his face is diminishing, but his teeth and cheek are sore which makes eating difficult, and he is still dealing with dizziness which is making him crazy! He can't really handle looking at his phone or computer and he can't drive yet, so he's going batty. We followed up with the ENT on monday and they diagnosed him with BPPV, a specific kind of vertigo that is common after head injury. The tried some maneuvers on him that are supposed to alleviate the symptoms and he felt a lot better than afternoon, sadly by morning he was quite dizzy again, although he says it feels different now. We had the follow-up with the eye doctor tuesday, and they said his eye and facial fractures are healing fine and to be patient with the headaches, but to follow up again about the dizziness, so now tomorrow we see a balance specialist in hopes of figuring out this dizziness once and for all, and we are also working on a dentist appointment to check his sore teeth. Ryan is very sick of doctors at this point! We are hoping the end of the road is soon though, cause Ryan really needs to feel like himself again. Lets hope this never happens again. And let's hope I can get myself back on a bike at some point, Ryan is already anxious to get back on, I can't say I feel the same, too much trauma still! Yikes.
