Thursday October 23, 2008
Jon had an accident with his motorcycle earlier this afternoon. He ran into an utility pole. He was life-flighted to Fort Wayne Parkview Hospital. He has bruises and scrapes on his forehead--that's all we can see of his face at the moment--but has no swelling of the brain, so far. That could still develop sometime in the next 48 hours. (He is on a ventilator which explains why we can't see the rest of his face.) He has two fractured vertebrae in the neck area, C1 and C6 which will necessitate a halo which they will probably put on sometime tomorrow. The top two ribs on the right side are fractured and the first one on the left side is fractured but there was no puncturing of the lung. The really serious problem was the fracturing of L 4,5,6,8 vertebrae and probably L7. These affect his walking and they do not give much hope of his being able to walk again. At the moment he is heavily sedated, his blood pressure was down so he is on medication to raise it and his temperature is below normal so they have a special warming blanket on him. He is in and out of consciousness so it is difficult to talk with him. They will do more checking on the lumbar vertebrae when his blood pressure is more stabilized. He will no doubt be wearing some kind of brace for his back. He will probably be in the hospital a good 3 weeks but we're not sure. He is in an ICU unit and probably will be for several days, maybe a week.???
Parkview Hospital
220 Randallia Dr.
Fort Wayne, IN 46805
ICU 1124
Wish us well--
Friday, October 24, 2008
Correction: The vertebrae that are fractured are the Cervical 1, Cervical 6 and the Thoracic 4,5,6,8 (T).
Jon continues to make progress. When we first saw him on Thursday, he had a mask over his mouth and nose with what looked like 3 tubes going down his throat. The next morning, the mask was gone but the 3 tubes were there. Yesterday afternoon he had a trach inserted so he would be more comfortable. With the trach his mouth is free of all tubes. When we left tonight the nurse told us that he was breathing almost entirely on his own. Once a minute he would get air from the ventilator. Tomorrow they are going to remove the tube from the trach and replace it with a mask of sorts and blow oxygen over it for him to breathe. The ultimate goal is to have him breathing entirely on his own. Tomorrow the brace should be ready to be put on him. Once the brace is on, they will sit him up in a chair!!!
When asked if he was heavily sedated, the nurse replied that he was being kept comfortable but was not heavily sedated. He gets morphine every two hours. He was pretty heavily sedated for the halo and trach and some of it may still be in his system. He apparently is just resting. The monitors went off 2 times while we were there today and both times his eyes flew open and his eyes darted from side to side to figure out what was going on. Other than that his eyes are usually closed. He will occasionally open them to acknowledge when someone first starts talking to him.
Jon had an accident with his motorcycle earlier this afternoon. He ran into an utility pole. He was life-flighted to Fort Wayne Parkview Hospital. He has bruises and scrapes on his forehead--that's all we can see of his face at the moment--but has no swelling of the brain, so far. That could still develop sometime in the next 48 hours. (He is on a ventilator which explains why we can't see the rest of his face.) He has two fractured vertebrae in the neck area, C1 and C6 which will necessitate a halo which they will probably put on sometime tomorrow. The top two ribs on the right side are fractured and the first one on the left side is fractured but there was no puncturing of the lung. The really serious problem was the fracturing of L 4,5,6,8 vertebrae and probably L7. These affect his walking and they do not give much hope of his being able to walk again. At the moment he is heavily sedated, his blood pressure was down so he is on medication to raise it and his temperature is below normal so they have a special warming blanket on him. He is in and out of consciousness so it is difficult to talk with him. They will do more checking on the lumbar vertebrae when his blood pressure is more stabilized. He will no doubt be wearing some kind of brace for his back. He will probably be in the hospital a good 3 weeks but we're not sure. He is in an ICU unit and probably will be for several days, maybe a week.???
Parkview Hospital
220 Randallia Dr.
Fort Wayne, IN 46805
ICU 1124
Wish us well--
Friday, October 24, 2008
Correction: The vertebrae that are fractured are the Cervical 1, Cervical 6 and the Thoracic 4,5,6,8 (T).
Jon continues to make progress. When we first saw him on Thursday, he had a mask over his mouth and nose with what looked like 3 tubes going down his throat. The next morning, the mask was gone but the 3 tubes were there. Yesterday afternoon he had a trach inserted so he would be more comfortable. With the trach his mouth is free of all tubes. When we left tonight the nurse told us that he was breathing almost entirely on his own. Once a minute he would get air from the ventilator. Tomorrow they are going to remove the tube from the trach and replace it with a mask of sorts and blow oxygen over it for him to breathe. The ultimate goal is to have him breathing entirely on his own. Tomorrow the brace should be ready to be put on him. Once the brace is on, they will sit him up in a chair!!!
When asked if he was heavily sedated, the nurse replied that he was being kept comfortable but was not heavily sedated. He gets morphine every two hours. He was pretty heavily sedated for the halo and trach and some of it may still be in his system. He apparently is just resting. The monitors went off 2 times while we were there today and both times his eyes flew open and his eyes darted from side to side to figure out what was going on. Other than that his eyes are usually closed. He will occasionally open them to acknowledge when someone first starts talking to him.
We picked up the motorcycle from impound and there was not as much damage as we anticipated. The helmet was with the bike and from the scrape marks on it, it appears that Jon was wearing it after all!! The bike has grass in the windshield as well as in the tail pipes and so it looks like the bike flipped. We are not sure if Jon was thrown from it before it flipped or not.
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