Recovering

Jess is home and beginning the long weeks of her recovery. It was quite an adventure to get her from the car to the back door, then she still had to get through the house. That's the farthest she's walked all week.

I'll put the story of Jessi's accident and recovery here. The photo is Jessi's side of the car...

The girls were driving around in the country near Clarks, NE, which is about half an hour from here. Megan, Jessi's best friend, was driving a 2001 Ford Mustang. Jess was in the front passenger seat. Both girls had their seatbelts on. Jess said she was dozing and was about to tell Megan she wanted to go home. She opened her eyes, saw headlights, heard Megan yell, and then woke up with a pickup in her side of the car.

Her seat was moved into the middle of the car. She couldn't unbuckle her seatbelt, and it was hurting her to have it on, so the driver of the pickup cut it off of her with a pocket knife. She didn't think she was hurt, so she crawled out the driver's side window. It became apparent she was not okay, so she laid down in the road ditch.

The guys in the pickup called 911 and the sheriff's department was dispatched. Megan and Jessi couldn't find their cell phones, so they borrowed his to call us. My phone rang at 1:22 a.m. - I got out of bed and could hear the phone ringing in the kitchen. I couldn't find it in the dark, and by the time I turned on the light and found the phone, Jess was on the answering machine, begging me to pick up, they'd "been hit". Greg heard that and immediately started getting dressed.

I asked her if she was okay and she said no, but she couldn't tell me how she was hurt, just that she was. She said the sheriff and ambulance were on the way. I asked where they were and she was asking the other people there, so I just had her give the phone to someone who was not hurt. The guy told me where they were, and that the Merrick County Sheriff's department was on the way. I told him not to let her move and we were on our way.

She told me later that the guys had covered her in their winter coats to keep her warm. (No one else was hurt, though a few days later Megan was found to have some cracked ribs.)

I called the sheriff's department to confirm their location. That's when I found out they had not dispatched an ambulance. I told her that Jessi said she was hurt, so the dispatcher got the ambulance going immediately.

On the way to the accident, I called the sheriff's office again to see if they had word on how badly Jess was hurt. The dispatcher didn't know, but radioed the scene to see if we should go there, or meet them at the hospital. They said we should just go to Central City to the hospital.

We got there about 10 minutes before they did - a long wait, believe me! They brought Jess in wrapped in a huge sleeping bag-type of blanket, with a neck collar, on a back board, and with an oxygen mask on. All I could see of her were her hands folded on top.

They got her unwrapped and moved to the table, then I was able to stand by her. She saw me and said, "Hi honey!". I started to cry, of course. She told me "don't cry" and I told her that when she sees her child in a neck collar on a backboard, she'll cry, too.

She had a great deal of pain in her abdomen, so they did x-rays. That's when they found the pelvic fractures. They told us they had to send her on to Grand Island since that was serious and they didn't have an orthopedic doctor at Central City. Dr. Schneider, the trauma surgeon at GI ordered an abdominal CT scan before she left CC, so if necessary, he could have a trauma team assembled when she got there. I watched the CT - of course I couldn't see anything wrong, but I recognized organs and it was fascinating to watch.

We followed the ambulance to GI and waited in the ER emergency room while they assessed her condition and did labs. We finally got to go be with her for a few minutes before they took her to do a head and neck CT and then a cystogram to check her bladder since the CT had show some damage. That showed a hole in a place where they had to do surgery. The doctor said the force of the impact is what caused that and the laceration of her spleen.

She eventually went to surgery to repair her bladder. By then, Nick and Greg's family was there with us. Bobbi and Kurt came when they got Tonita's message, and Jackie joined us just about the time Jess got out of surgery. (THANKS, GUYS!!)

She has a 6 or 7 inch long incision, but it looks like it's not going to be a bad scar. They told her it looks like she had a C-section. She will have a catheter until next week when they will do another cystogram to check for leakage in the bladder. If all is well, they will remove the catheter.

The pelvic fractures put her in the orthopedic ward at the hospital. (Joint camp - where all the knee and hip replacement patients are.) On Monday they started Physical therapy to get her out of bed the first time. I wasn't there when they did that. Nanny said it was rough, but the PT was awesome. PT continued twice a day, doing leg exercises and then getting her out of bed and using a walker to creep into the hall and back. Yesterday they had her climb their portable staircase, before she could go home.

She also has a little device she has to suck air through to help her expand her lungs and prevent pnuemonia. She has to do this about 1,000 times a day (just kidding, but it is a lot!). And we have to push fluids now that her IV is out. I have to keep track of her "output" and take that back to the urologist next week. Fun.

I contacted Jessi's college advisor about classes. She said to just call next week and let her know when she's ready to do some work at home and she'd get some assignments sent. I don't know how her lab classes will be made up or if she'll need to drop them and try again next semester. We'll find out next time we talk to the advisor. It will be several weeks before she can return to campus.

That's about it in a nutshell. I'll keep you posted as her recovery continues.