A Birthday She'll Never Forget (But Only Because We'll Tell Her What Happened)

Sunday morning March 7, 2010

Life became turned around a little yesterday... March 6, 2010.

It all started about an hour before they MedEvac'd my wife to St. Luke Hospital's trauma center.

It had been such a beautiful day... we had her surprise 50th birthday party Friday night, and Saturday Mar. 6 was her actual birthday. So off we went for a day of skiing at Camelback, absolutely gorgeous day, sunny and pushing 50 degrees. Sunscreen weather. I was patrolling anyway since it was Saturday, and she brought Kate / Jay. Fred my buddy from college was there too, and we were skiing together as much as we could. It was Kate/Jay's first time doing the "black diamonds" and they were stoked!

I went on a call for some dude with a knee injury, and left the group to either follow me or do something else. They're used to it.

Karen, Kate, Jay, and Fred decided to do "The Rocket," one of the black diamonds. Conditions were excellent, actually, and they were doing great... until Karen fell backward onto her head. Didn't seem like much according to Fred, who witnessed it. She lost her skis, he helped her get them back on, and she skied to the bottom, no trouble. At the bottom, though, she started losing orientation. Fred very correctly hustled her into the patrol room; do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

When I got to the patrol room with the toboggan and my guy with the knee, Ed the patroller in charge said "I need you inside right away, they'll take your patient. Your wife is inside. Hit her head."

Freakin' great. Now what?

Where am I?  Did I fall?  Did I hit my head? Where am I?

She was "looping" as we say on about a 10 second loop... "Did I lose consciousness? Where am I? (wasn't sure if she was in Pennsylvania or Utah). Did I fall? Did I hit my head? Did I lose consciousness? Did I fall? Did I hit my head? Did I lose consciousness?"

Amazing how the progression goes... first I'm going to take her to the local hospital by car. Then Wayne, one of the other patrollers, reminds me that I have to look at her not as my wife, but as a patient and what would you do if she was your patient? Bam. He says "Do you want to take a vote?" Bam. All right, you're right Wayne, she's going in an ambulance. Continues looping all the while, then she gets nauseous. The ambulance crew decides to fly her since the local hospital doesn't have a neuro unit. All the while she's looping, for almost an hour at this point. We all remember Natasha Richardson all the time with head injury patients and no one needs a repeat of that... And standing there are two 10-year olds worrying about their Mommy.



Gotta tell you, it's pretty freaky when it's your wife on the table and people are strapping her to a backboard and putting a cervical collar on her and tying her head down to get her ready for the ride in the sky. But the right thing for me to do was to take a step back, change out of my patroller suit and into my husband/daddy suit, and let my friends do all the right things, and they did.

Does this backboard make my butt look big?

So she went one way and we went another to get to the hospital. Biggest difference is our way was $17,000 cheaper. (As a special bit of joy, the story is that her flight is not covered by insurance, I guess we'll find that out for sure before too long.)

My GPS died on the way to the hospital. Not a good omen.

We get to the hospital, and the receptionist tells us that a member of the trauma team will be down to talk with us right away. Please sit there. We sit.  We wait for a doctor or a nurse.

Four minutes (a VERY long four minutes) later, a lady with a CLERGY COLLAR steps out, looks around, and asks for Karen's family.

This is stunningly attention-getting, I assure you.

For maybe a count of three, I see nothing else but that collar. It was 7 feet wide and 5 feet high.  You've heard the term "blood ran cold." It does. Many dreadful things flash before your eyes in just those 3 seconds.

But the clergy lady says that Karen's up in one of the rooms, she’s talking, they're going to keep her overnight, and let's go upstairs.

Much.  Better.  My body temperature rights itself instantly.

We follow the clergy lady through 17 hallways, up an elevator, through 39 sets of doors.  There's her room, just ahead.

And man, is she talking.

Kate notching another one for "Did I lose consciousness?"

They'd already done a CAT scan (negative!) and some other tests (no dope, booze, tranquilizers, or anything else interesting on the tox screen). They cleared her C-spine (removed the uncomfortable C-collar) a couple hours after that. They kept her overnight, and will decide this morning whether to discharge her or not. Over the course of our stay with her last night, about 6 hours, she was starting to sort a few of the marbles into the correct holes, but was still looping some. She started remembering bits & pieces of her party Friday night, and once even remembered what we had for breakfast Saturday.


I'm guessing "yes" they'll discharge her today but if she's still looping, or if the repeat CAT scan shows changes, who knows what'll happen.

Happy times at the hospital, 
even tho' she doesn't remember any of it.

But thank God for the inventor of the ski helmet.

And if you're got the winning lottery numbers for this week, I'm all ears.

More news as it breaks.


- - - - - - - - -

Late Sunday night Mar 7… she's there, we're here.

More news as promised.

They decided, in an abundance of caution, and because the people necessary to do the test weren’t in today, to keep her a second night. She’ll get a “cognition” test Monday morning, presumably she’ll pass with flying colors, and we’ll take it all from there. This afternoon she was mostly back, some short-term memory hang-ups, but nothing at all like yesterday. What a difference 24 hours makes.

One of the things we did yesterday (suggested by Ron, her outstanding nurse) was to write on the whiteboard in her room some of the questions she was asking. We also took it upon ourselves to count the number of times she asked each question… well estimate anyway, but we got pretty close, I think.

The count winner by far was “Did I lose consciousness?” which she said AT LEAST once/minute (probably more like 4 – 6 times / minute) for AT LEAST 6 hours. So if we go real conservative and say 2 times / minute for 6 hours, that’s over 700 times. Probably well over 1,000 times for that one. We wrote “NO LOC” on the board, and it got to the point where she was ready to ask the question again, she’d look over at the board, see NO LOC and just laugh about it.

Turns out our initial guess of 300 times asking 
"Did I lose consciousness?" was low by many hundreds...

We’d ask her what day it was. She wouldn’t know. We’d say “It’s March 6.” “It’s my Birthday!?” “Yes.” “No it isn’t.” “Yes it is. Happy Birthday.” “It’s not my birthday.”

Other favorites on the board were “Did I have a CVA?” (Cerebro-Vascular Accident… a.k.a. a stroke) Answers: “NO CVA.” And “CAT SCAN Negative.”

“Where did this happen?” Answer: Rocket.

“Someone tell me exactly why I’m here.”

One of her main frustrations is not remembering the helicopter ride. So someday we’re going to take a helicopter ride that she can remember.

The official diagnosis at this point is a “Grade 3 Concussion.” They go up to Grade 3. She remembers absolutely nothing about the accident or anything for hours after it… nothing in the patrol room, nothing in the helicopter, nothing in the E.R., Cat Scan, or early part of her stay in the neuro step-down unit. She says she doesn't remember us being there last night, but it did register that she wasn't alone.

Nope, doesn't remember this either... 
This is a shot of one of her trauma docs checking in.

But she’s getting there, quickly it seems. She just called to say goodnight to Kate & Jay and to ask me to bring her dental floss tomorrow.

Thanks to everyone… obviously Camelback’s ski patrollers who are the best anywhere get special notice. Go Saturday Crew! The staff at St. Luke’s, also awesome… particularly her nurse Ron, who sets the bar so high for nursing care and Lissette, the patient care assistant. How they find time to spend so much caring time with Karen is amazing, given that they are so busy in general.

More news, again, as it breaks.

- - - - -

March 9, 2010... update

Well, my sweetie's home. Yesterday was her day to say goodbye to St. Luke's (put your hands together for it being the *last* time she goes there except maybe as a visitor). We bought chocolates for the staff and a little angel for the wonderful & caring Lissette, who looks like Halle Berry, only cuter.

They said NO WORK for 2 weeks... Karen still has to make an appointment at Good Shepherd Rehab for testing, to ensure all the marbles are in all the right rows. She's of course chomping at the bit to get right back to work, but her noggin may have other plans. We'll see. Obviously we all have to make sure she's 100% remembering so there's no question she's totally back on trifles like, oh I don't know, MEDS and DOSAGES and THINGS TO DO FOR A CARDIAC ARREST. She has an appointment a week from today for a follow-up checkup.

I say again...

Thank God for the inventor of the ski helmet.

- - - - - - - - -

Update March 16...

This was a big day... the "cognition test" day.  Having received a letter from her employer that said (paraphrasing here):  "Dear Karen, sorry to hear about your accident.  If you're not back to work by March 21, you're fired.  However, you will be eligible for re-hire if we repost your job.  Have a nice life." the pressure was on to pass that test.

So we get there, and the check-in nurse says "Oh NO... today's not your test.  They're just going to see you and schedule your test. 

UN AC CEPTABLE.

After a bit of drama, we did manage to see first one doc, then his boss.  They poked and prodded and asked questions like "count backward from 100 by 7's."  Try that... pretty hard.  Poke and prod some more.  Ask more questions, do drawings, and on.  Result:

Pass with Flying Colors.  Back to work approved.  No restrictions!


So... this part of the saga is over.  Now it's time to do battle with the insurance company, the hospital, the labs, the doctors who saw her for a few minutes here and there, the ambulance company and my personal favorite, the helicopter company.  All good stuff to have when you need it, but not fun when you open the mailbox in the aftermath.

Bake sales appreciated... winning lotto numbers even more appreciated.

Thanks so much to everyone for all the support, prayers, good words, emails, phone calls.

Life sure ain't dull...





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Week in UT... some snow, some not

Yo:

Figured I'd knock aht a quick note while in the skies over, oh, let's see, Nebraska.

Fline home from our annual trip to Salt Lake City after quite a mixed bag of a week. Of course they received tons of snow last week. Of course there are tons of snow in the forecast for next week. Amount of snow we received the week we were there? 6", all of it yesterday (and I
wasn't even on the mountain to enjoy it!). El Stinko. But I guess you've got to have years like this one to balance out the years like the last one, when we got 53" of snow in 2 days. That was one for the history books.

Arrived last Saturday 3/8, solo this time, as Karen stayed home with the kiddies. Nice to find that our haus was still in very good shape, always a pleasant sight to see. No repairs needed, no trips to Home Depot. Just focus on relaxing...

Jumped right on the slopes Sunday. Beautiful day (if you call cloudless, infinite sky beautiful, a hotly debatable topic). We went to Solitude, ordinarily one of my favorites... but even Solitude couldn't cope with the relentless lack of snow the last few days, and conditions were not all that great by Utah standards. Probably "good" by Pocono standards, but when we're in Utah we want to be skiing with snorkels, and we weren't. So we stuck to the "groomers" (the trails where the grooming machines condition the snow like a farmer plows a field, leaving parallel lines like corduroy pants) and zoomed around for the day. Usually we're in the powder, in the trees, going slow and mostly avoiding running into the trees. Gave the ankles a workout... probably too much of a workout.

Sunday evening, we went to the Yurt at Solitude, a Mongolian-style tent stuck out in the woods somewhere. Jeff, Glenn, and I ( the brave (?) souls) opted for the cross-country skis; everybody else went for the snowshoe option. I learned a lot about XC skiing that night:
-- They don't go so good on ice
-- They don't stop so good on ice
Unlike regular downhill skis, there are no discernable edges on XC skis. You're skiing on just a slab of very long, very narrow fiberglass that mostly refuses to go where you point it. Uphill (to the Yurt) is not so bad so long as you stay in the railroad tracks left by XC skiers before
you. The bottom of the XC skis are fashioned with ridges, like fish scales, that sort of keep the things from sliding backward as you're going uphill. Jeff got the hang of it pretty quickly, and was off like Leif Ericksson in a race to be the first to map Greenland or something. (Remember this for later). Glenn is an awesome skier anyway, so he had no trouble. I slogged along, and did manage to survive the trip to the Yurt. It was uphill, and there were the tracks to keep the skis in.

Now, once you get to the Yurt (a trip of a kilometer or so, no big deal), the feast is on. There was a new chef this year, and he whipped up quite a feast - gour-met all the way. We had squab over mushrooms for an appetizer. Hot, spicy borscht (sp?), made with a veal stock that was awesome, and some of us had seconds. If you've had cold borscht, don't even try to compare... there is no comparison. The entrée was lamb shank that fell off the bone. Then homemade cinnamon ice cream and bread pudding for dessert. Not a dinner for the calorie-conscious, not at all.

Now it's time to return to the base. This is crunch time.

The skiers lead off. Glenn goes first, not a problem there. I'm next. I'm happy just to stay upright, left ski in the track, the other canted at 45 degrees, theoretically to maintain some control over speed. It works, a little. I sprain my ankle, a little. I slide doggedly on.

Jeff starts behind me at some distance. At first we're fine.

Halfway to the bottom, Jeff catches up - remember he's a man on a mission to conquer Greenland. Jeff has both skis in the frozen tracks. This, he realizes with a damp horror, means zero control over speed. There's Ed, dead ahead. Periscope up. Load torpedo bays. Target off
the nose,

range 15 meters. 10 meters. 5.

3.

Crushing disaster imminent, Jeff takes one for the team.

Unable to stop any other way, he falls to one side, BAM. BAM. It's crude but effective, collision avoided (other than his with the ground, of course). Jeff gets up, dusts himself off, and in a display of lesson-unlearned, starts again and hurtles past.

Watching him advance in the moonlit darkness, I'm able to see only a small, almost playful, puff as he goes down once again. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure his fall count stayed under 5 for the return trip.

Monday, with my ankle hurting a bit, just where the boot pounds into it, I took the day off. Donna (Fred's wife) and I went to the zoo. Pretty cool. We learned the difference between African and Asian elephants, fed birds out of my hand, talked with a bird, and watched a giraffe eat out of a bin 17 ft. off the ground. The rest of the gang went to Alta and had a good day of skiing. Went to the Mayan restaurant for dinner, where they serve Mexican food, and have a diving show every 1/2 hour.

Tuesday - ankle still hurt, so I took another day off. Figured I'd rather take it easy, since the skiing wasn't so good anyway. Fred was resting his knee (he's recovering from ACL surgery a few months ago) so he, Donna, and I went to ride "Nascarts" - these go-karts, but they
weren't open. Bummer. That would've been fun. Dinner that night we all went to the "Made in Brazil" restaurant, which is always a kickin' time if you're a carnivore. They have a salad bar, which is pretty good actually, but the main event is the meat that just keeps coming. Again
we dispensed with the whole concept of watching what we eat, this is vacation after all... They make fresh juice drinks - you want a mango drink, they're throwing mangoes in the blender. Kiwi? It's peeled and in it goes. Papaya? They've got it. Awesome. But as good as the
drinks are, the highlight is the meat. They cook meat on skewers, all different kinds of meat, and it keeps coming until you moan "Uncle" and flip over the little gizzy that's half red and half green to the red side up. Garlic steak, top sirloin, tenderloin, chicken, turkey, ham. Even pineapple, and believe me, that's the way to have pineapple. More sirloin, and tenderloin, and chicken. And more. And more. For the last few years, we've always gone to Made in Brazil at least once/trip,
especially since the regrettable closing of the Hungry Heifer. We can't remember the actual name of that restaurant, but they'd serve a bowl of chicken breasts as an appetizer for the table, to go along with your steak. Guess they figured they'd make it up in volume... and didn't.

Wednesday - Jeff had scheduled a shortened week, so he left Wed. morning, vowing to be back and conquer the Yurt next time. Lee and Nate decided to take the day off, and stayed home, I think. For ski destination, we had a divergence of opinion; Glenn and Bonnie (I work
with Glenn) wanted to go to Snowbird, as Glenn's parents (who were also in Salt Lake this week) had never been there. Fred's not so wild about "The Bird" and I hadn't skied Alta, so to Alta Fred and I went, first time for me, a return trip for him. Ankle was feeling better, but since
it was so warm we were concerned about conditions in the afternoon getting sticky. We bought a morning ticket, and skied hard until about 1 p.m., when the ticket ran out. It was getting a little sticky to be sure, and the ankle had had enough by then anyway. Conditions were
surprisingly good, though, high on the hill. If you've gotta live without fresh powder, then that's the kind of day you want - good skiing, good company, and ready for the hot tub at the end. Tried the Ruby River Steakhouse for dinner that night (keeping with a carnivore
theme, I guess). It was OK, but worth a return trip? Hmmmm.

The news ALL over the TV that night (and the next day, and the next) was that they'd found Elizabeth Smart in Sandy, about 10 minutes from our house. Talk about great news!

Thursday - Nate and Lee left today; Nate lucked out and got an earlier flight, Lee was stuck with his 10:30 p.m. departure, boo hoo for him. I guess a lot of people were bailing out of SLC because of the high temps/lack of snow anat. Anyway, how insane is this -- I'd scheduled a
sales call in Logan, UT, about 2 hrs. north of Salt Lake, and besides, temps in the valley were a record-breaking 72 degrees, so we figured the skiing would be "iffy" anyway. The good news is that the sales call was sorta near the Golden Spike Nat'l Historic Site, a place Fred wanted to
see at some point in this trip. Fred & Donna dropped me off and I made the call while they stopped in Border's Books in Logan. When I was done (mercifully brief call, and they're even
interested in some stuff, whaddya know) Fred and Donna picked me up and off to the Golden Spike site we went. Very interesting. This is where the Union Pacific RR (building from the east) met the Central Pacific RR (building from the west). When we got there I thought we'd be about it for the day, but surprisingly there were quite a number of people that followed us. Why surprising? This place is in the center, of the middle, of nowhere. If you want to check a map, it's near Promontory, UT. Good luck. Really gave us an appreciation for what those guys went
through, though, building the transcontinental railroad. Digging, by hand, tunnels through the mountains, making 8 inches / day of progress. Roasting heat. Vicious cold. Maintaining a maximum 2 degree slope to the tracks that meant (by hand, of course) digging & blasting trenches through hills in some places and (by hand, of course) filling in gullies in other places. Rarely did the topography cooperate, it seemed. We did a walking tour of about 1.5 miles that showed, among other things, where someone (a surveyor?) screwed up the location of a trench. Turns out the advance team was off by 75 feet, so this huge trench that they'd dug and blasted (by hand, of course) was a waste of time. Makes you want to cry. Saw the "big fill" where the Central Pacific filled in a 400 ft. ravine. By hand, of course. Built in the 1860's, it's still in
use today by ranchers for access to their farms.

Friday - Temps were in the 60's, and I just couldn't get inspired with skiing, and didn't want to stress the ankle, on the off chance that I'll still have to do the Ski Patrol gig back home once I return. Little did I know that this would be the one day this week we'd get snow (the
Weather Channel sure wasn't saying much about it)... and the gang at Alta got ~6" of new stuff, which made it a very good day indeed for skiing. Oh well. Donna and I did some souvenir shopping, then I made chili for the gang. Turned out pretty well, except I put the red and green
peppers in way too soon, and they ended up mushy. I'll know for next time. Made tarragon and basil sourdough bread, which came out much better.

So here we are Saturday, and ze plane is ready to start the descent. Totally uneventful flight so far, except for a half hour delay while they fixed one of the brakes, nice for us to have good brakes. V. psyched to be getting home. Will have a crowd at the haus tonight, as Karen went skiing with Donna (ours), one of her (our) friends from long ago, and her (very nice) kids. Kate and Jay spent the day in daycare with Miss Terry at the mountain. So it will be cool to see everyone when I get home at 6 or 6:30. Will send this sometime after that.

Until next year... thinking powder.


Cheers