Daddy update...

On Thursday, June 28th our dad, Kenny B, was involved in an accident at work. The long and short of it is that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time when a part off a crane decided to break and fall on him. Skip over the rest of this post if you cannot handle gross medical details, you won't hurt my feelings.

The initial impact hit him in the chest and abdomen area and forced him to the ground. The part of the crane that fell then landed on his legs, causing his knees to hyperextend and bend the wrong way dislocating his knee caps. Fortunately, the adrenaline rush of another worker allowed him to lift this heavy piece of crane off dad's legs BY HIMSELF. Amazing. He was airlifted to Chapel Hill Hospital (which is where we all are now) where they took him in and did the first of many surgeries to come. He went in at around 8:30 or 9:00 pm and they let us know that their first concern was the artery in his right leg that had been damaged. At the time, they could find a pulse in his ankle of his right leg but not in the top of his foot which meant that the circulation was poor. If he continued to not have circulation, he could have lost his leg.

So they went in and did a vein graph. Basically, they took a vein from his left leg and put it into his right leg in order for the circulation to improve. They also went in and put pins and rods on the exterior of his legs in order to keep the knee caps in place. They also found a blood clot in his right leg, but when they opened him up, it moved and corrected itself. He has a gash behind his right kneed cap that is about 4 inches long that has caused a lot of nerve damage. All things that have troubled the doctors to no end.

At 1am Friday morning, the vascular surgeon came out and said that from his perspective, the surgery had gone as well as it could and he was positive that the circulation problem would be fixed. At 2am, the orthopeadic surgeon came out and said that they had placed the rods around his knee caps and that their part was done for now. However, more surgery would be needed to reconstruct his knees. They left him with a morphine drip that he could push a button and release as he needed. They also put him on blood thinners in order to prevent future blood clots.

At about 2:30 am, Mr. J, DK and I had decided we would head home and try to get some sleep. Then in the ICU waiting room over the loud speakers came a voice... "PAC-U Code Blue, PAC-U Code Blue." Mom's eyes got as big as saucers and she spoke up. "Your dad's in PAC-U, you're not going anywhere." So we waited to see if it was him. Fortunately, mom wandered around til she found PAC-U and asked someone if dad was ok and they assured her he was sleeping so we were all relieved. That was probably the scariest moment of them all so far.

On Friday morning, his kidneys stopped functioning properly and so he started retaining fluid. He swelled up like a marshmellow and just looked horrible. We got to start visiting him two at a time so we would lather up and walk into the Vascular ICU every so often. We had tons of guests and they brought food and drinks and were such a blessing.

They flushed his kidneys in order for them to start working better and luckily, they did. On Saturday, they moved him out of ICU and into a private room. This has been the biggest blessing because he has had more visitors than you can shake a stick at and the room has helped folks to come and go as they please.

They updated us on Saturday and told us that he had broken his back in two places. He fractured two of his vertebraes, L3 and T11. They don't know at this time if surgery will be needed, but they did fit him with a hard plastic brace that he will need to wear for a few months on his torso. Friday night he had bled pretty steadily because of the blood thinners so they took him off of the blood thinners on Saturday and put in a filter that would stop clots.

Saturday night they were able to find a pulse in his right foot on the top so that was the first of many answered prayers. His swelling in his face and upper body went down pretty dramatically and he was able to talk more and got a good nap (as did mom, finally). Being in the private room has given him more chance to sleep and there's a wonderful chair that folds out into a bed so mom can sleep. This has been the biggest help for all of us children, knowing that both of them can get their rest.

Today is Sunday and they have taken his cathader out which has been a blessing and a curse. He's had a hard time with the bed pan so this is the first of many struggles to come. Again, visitors have been arriving steadily so he's taking time to talk to all of them which is good. He's been coherent the entire time and says he remembers every detail of the accident. Says it's just a freak, random accident that could have happened to anyone.

Moral seems to be good all around. We all know that he has a long, uphill battle ahead of him and we don't know how long he'll be in the hospital or how long til surgery. I'll keep this blog as updated as possible so that you all will know what we know. If y'all have any questions, please email me or post a message on here. I will answer it to the best of my ability. Our cells work at the hospital so we can take calls, but with so many visitors, it's been hard to make all of the appropriate phone calls. Please don't be upset if we haven't called you. We're doing all that we can given the circumstances.

The Lord has blessed us with a wonderful network of family and friends and we are so blessed to have them all here. Thank you for taking the time to read this... I'll put a few pics up shortly.