Matt is holding steady, and will hopefully be out of the ICU soon.

The surgeon could not put screws (which are NOT the same as bolts) in his wrist because there are so many fractures, so he put a bone graft. His wrist might have some stiffness, but his fingers will be fine.

We hope to get him off the ventilation soon, and judging by his reaction to what his brother said, it will be soon. His youngest brother came down to help us out this past week, and since Dad can hear what everybody says, he told Dad he was in a contest with the guy in the next room to get off the ventilator, and the other guy was winning. Almost immediately his numbers went up and he was taking deep breaths on his own. The man hates to lose.

I think the person taking it the hardest is our dog, Snarky. She loves it when everybody is home (so she can boss them around), and right now everybody is a little stressed and she can feel that. Also, she misses Matt (she likes to sit in his chair with him), and she is very anxious, always following us everywhere we go.

Even though our normal daily flow has been disrupted, life still goes on, albeit sometimes in a dream like fashion. I got spacers (which hurt like nobody's business), Mom goes to the grocery store and my brother goes to school. The mail comes, the dishes still need to be done and the paper continues to be delivered.

Surgery

This morning Matt had surgery to repair his wrist, and that went well. He will be off the ventilator by tomorrow, which is great news. Also, the surgeon said that he broke is wrist into about 30 pieces. I Photoshopped some pictures to show what bones he broke, so here they are by special request. That is all the news we have as of yet, although I think tomorrow will be a big day. If he gets of the ventilator, they might wake him up so he can talk to us. Ya!








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On Monday, April 21 2008, (while my mom was in Florida), my dad was driving to work when he was hit on his motorcycle. At 8:30 I received a call from the hospital, asking for my moms number. Thinking nothing of it, I gave them the number and continued with my cereal. 5 minutes later, the phone rang again. It was Mom, and she said she was fine, but Dad was in a motorcycle accident and had been taken to Trauma ICU.

I told my brother (who cussed. Twice. Totally out of character), and went down to the hospital an hour later. My uncle and 3 friends came to support us (which was more welcome and nessacery then I previously believed). They told us to wait in the Emergency waiting room while they found his nurse. After 10 minutes, they told us to go up to Trauma ICU waiting room.

20 minutes elapsed before we got into the Trauma ICU unit, where we found out the full extent of his injuries. I thought he had only broken a leg, but in full Matt style, he was pretty dang thorough.

He broke his tibia, femur, hip, multiple ribs and shattered his left wrist. He also bruised a lung. He did not, thank God, have any brain or spinal injuries.

When we saw him, they had him on oxygen and various drugs, but you could tell he was in pain. Nothing (as any kid would agree) is scarier than seeing your parent in pain. Especially when you always harbored the idea that they were tougher than anything anybody could throw at them.

Currently, he is on a ventilator and dialysis. He is also sedated (NOT A COMA), and will be until the doctors believe he can come off the ventilator. The ventilator is because he cannot breathe deep enough, because of the pain, to keep his lungs healthy. Due to the trauma of the accident, his kidneys started to shut down. They did not fail. The dialysis is merely preventative, giving his kidneys a break to sort everything out. Because he broke so many bones, a lot of toxins and other bad thing were released into his blood, which started to overload the kidneys.

He goes in for surgery on Monday, to repair his wrist.

As soon as we get some new information, we will update this. Thank you for everything, it is truly appreciated.