SandBox_Kid

Hopefully this will be the final update to this thread...and I apologize for not being up to date lately. He had a 4th and final surgery and the pics the surgeon showed me looked good. The surgeon was very happy...finally. He had to cut out the bruising cause those areas of the muscles were dead. Three days later he unwrapped the arm and was extremely pleased with the healing process. Jon will have to be careful with his arm especially the area of the "flap". The doc explained that some of his patients have wounded their "flap" and it killed the blood flow off. We are lucky Jon is young and healthy, and is healing quickly ....28 days and counting in the hospital. Today is the 4th straight week....but there is finally light at the end of the tunnel. They are planning on releasing him from the hospital possibly Tue. We can't wait....a little normalcy back in life will be nice.

Still in the hospital....after 3 weeks. They are watching a quarter size bruise near the thumb to see if it dies off or not......and that's all that's keeping him from coming home. He's in his 5th room now....E367. I need to start the paperwork.....time to get the police report and all that good stuff for my insurance. Hope everyone enjoyed Dumont for kickoff weekend!!

We just got back from the short 30 min visits we are allowed. Jon was surprisingly in good spirits considering. Both arms are wrapped up and his pain is managed very well. They are keeping his room at 80 degrees....I'm pretty sure that's to keep his extremities plenty warm so there is no need for the body to pool the blood in the organs. The nurse let us hear the flow in the "flap"...which was music to our ears. They also have his pulse hooked up to the finger on his injured hand and it is reading a good pulse. They couldn't get one before. At this point....so far so good, but we aren't out of the woods yet.

That sucks.....RIP fellow duners.

Here's the update..... I just got up after returning from an all day adventure at the hospital. We were there from 8am Sunday to 3am Monday for another operation. The plastic surgeon just completed 7+ hours of surgery on the tissues in my Jon's hand/wrist. He had to call his own anasteisiologist (sp?...you know the guy with the good stuff :mb:) because Jon kept getting bumped due to trauma after trauma coming into the hospital. The surgeon took a full arterial "flap" from his good arm and grafted it onto his bad one. He also grafted new skin onto the other gray areas around his hand and to the area removed from his good arm. He re-repaired one of the main nerves also. If this one doesn't take...amputation is a real possibility because he needs blood flow to the hand. The doctor was happy with the "flap" and artery after re-attachment....plenty of blood flow, and nice and pink, however, both muscles in his hand are dead which means it will not function properly again. We are hoping things stay pink with plenty of blood flow for the next 48 hours. As each day passes beyond 48 hours and the flow is good the chances of keeping the hand increase also. We are grateful he still has it and is with us, as many of the doctors have told us he is lucky to still have his hand because the damage was significant. The trauma was incredible, and I still don't wanna see the pictures....unless it is the worse case scenario...then I would want to know why. It has been a long and twisted weekend and even 5 hours sleep seems like it does no good, but we perservere and fight for Jon. At this time he will be in the CICU for the next 5 days and has both arms splinted and bandaged. His visiting times are extremely limited at this time and I know he's going to have to learn some patience from this experience. Please keep him in your thoughts and prayers.

Yesterday was the first day he was back to himself, and that made us happy. More pics in the gallery from today's wound cleaning. His doctor wants him out of the hospital so he can see a plastic surgeon that only works out of UMC. Hopefully his release will be soon.

Burns are definately not fun.

Kickoff weekend is not looking like a go at this point, but there'll be plenty of sand, campfires and friends to come.

Cell phone pics of the injury are in the injuries album. The attempt to graph the skin back in place didn't appear to work.....and if you're squeamish...don't look.

My thoughts exactly.

Very sad....one of the top drummers out there. IMO

Goat-tee and all.

That's cool....but did I see a dancing :poop: poo?

I certainly hope that has nothing to do with cake. j/k STOMP was a great show....so was Blue Man Group if you like the percussion instrument type of shows.

...and on to the update. Jon is getting a little better as the days go by. He was told by the physical therapist to start straightening the fingers out a little at a time. He needs to have them fully extended by Tue. otherwise the scar tissue on the tendons in his forearm will grow and freeze things in place. By moving them I guess he is keeping that from happening. We can't wait to bring him home, so we can baby our "not-so" little boy. We found out yesterday that our new "rude" neighbors have a stripper pole in the living room. Maybe we'll take over their house for the midget stripper!! Good times with good people. Jon and I still laugh when we talk about that!!!

Thanks again for all the thoughts and prayers. Correction to the room...he is in E547. Sorry Dave and Jackie for the room mixup. Here's to hoping the economy picks up for all of you....and Ken I will be in contact. I could use some tint replaced on the wife's truck fairly soon. G

He's now in Rm E547 and visiting is wide open. ...and yes like Pete said physical therapy will come, but not right now.

People actually get stuck on that hill? They do a good job and I appreciate the heads up, but thinking they can go without staff all together tells me somebody's a little off. j/k It seems with the new system the vendors on-site won't be selling passes....and if they are I still don't understand why they can't sell annual passes. I was hoping this year I could pick mine up from the on-site vendor and be good. Oh well....I'll do what I have to...to play in the sandbox. Thanks again for the great info.

I need new batteries for the hauler, an oil change on the rail, and Jon to be healed enough to at least be camp queen!

I have to agree whole heartedly. DDR steps up each and every time one of us is down. Thank you very much from my family to you and yours. I can't thank everyone enough for the kind thoughts and prayers. You all know I'm there if you need help.... There was nothing positive to report until now. Today we received some great news. It's time for Jon to move from the ICU to a regular room where we can really visit in DDR style. :beerbong: Visiting will probably be good tomorrow and into the weekend unless we get to take our son home. The doc said no more surgeries for now, but I'm sure there may be some down the road. I was under the impression they didn't set his bones cause the hand specialist said he didn't do any "pinning" due to the fact that the metal attracts bacteria and that would have been dangerous for him at the time, but they must have at least set it. He has been taken off of the nitroglycerin and will soon be on his feet. It's time for him to hold down some food and start the long battle of recovery. For the first time in the last 4 days this afternoon Jon was up, coherent, and even livened up when they could finally set some sort of timeframe for going home. They want to x-ray his back because he was complaining about pain....and that doesn't surprise me one bit. Thank you again for the big stack of mags Nick. Jon smiled when I told him about it. He's gettin' about ready to be concious enough to read and enjoy the material. You got it. I'll let him know. He chippers up when I tell him about all the folks that are thinking of him! ...here is a picture of the truck...he was in the passenger seat. First off I am not happy about the lack of a roll cage....but they were on a graded unpaved road with no intention of hitting it hard, and this could have actually happened to anyone in their daily driver. However, I'm still not happy...he knows better. Thank God he listened to some of our nagging and wore a helmet. He actually told us there was a cage in this truck.

Yes it is and the material would be nice. Please give me a call first....so I know where and how he is. Currently he is in ICU and should be there tomorrow.

Of all the bad-a$$ bowties he could have been in....it was a friggen biller ranger. (don't jump on me about the biller comment till you see my son's bill) Hopefully I'll have the pics soon....the ranger didn't look all that good. It still reminds me of the rhino accidents before they started putting in leg restraints.

I'll be sure to let him know. Thank you for the kind offer. Maybe a :beerbong: when I can drop my guard. There's another lesson there Joephat65...things can happen when you least expect it. I hear you on the life threatening issues....and that's what I focus on to get us through. He is at Sunrise hospital....and tomorrow may be best. I had to cut off visiting today due to the amount of pain he is in. If I ever did anything right by my son...that is definately one of them. Thanks for the laugh Nick.

For those of you who haven't heard my son was involved in an off-road rollover accident. Ironically they were just tooling along not hitting it hard when his buddy tapped the brakes to slow down for a wash and the rear end came around on them....the tires must have caught (or blew off the bead) and over they went. Jon suffered a serious injury to his right wrist that may leave him without the use of it, or worse. He spent 4+ hours in surgery last night and they were able to close things up. I have been offered to see the pictures by the medical staff, but refuse to look. I don't need to see that when he is being cared for. Had I rolled up on the scene...I would have assisted in any way including dressing the wound. The extent of the damage is bad. He fractured the outer bone...chipped the inner bone badly....lost both minor arteries....cut all of his tendons except for his thumb...peeled a 4" piece of flesh from completely around his wrist...and obviously has no feeling in his fingers due to severed nerves. If he was a smaller dude....I'm positive his hand would have been torn off. Currently there is no pulse in his hand...but there is capillary refill.....meaning there is circulation in his hand. We are hoping for another surgery to begin the repair process. He was up today and cracking a smile at my sarcastic jokes, but the pain must be intolerable (believe me I have seen it first hand). I have never seen my son in this much pain, and I hope to never have to see that again. They had a little trouble managing his pain today cause apparently morphine does nothing for him, but they now have it under control...we hope. At this point it is just a waiting game for the next 18+ hours. Please keep him in your prayers....send him some good chi......and positive vibes. That's all we ask. He will need his friends and family to keep his spirits high during what I am sure is going to be a long road to recovery....and if you don't have anything positive to add....please just don't add it here. Lessons learned....and things you will not see me without at the dunes: WRIST RESTRAINTS ARE A MUST IN OUR SPORT!!! I already know some of you use them...and I am not going on a crusade to tell everyone to wear helmets (yes he actually had one on) or wrist restraints......just please be safe out there. FYI - Thank God he is left-handed....cause I'm not wiping his :freakin_nuts: ....a firehose would have to do. j/k I will post when I can....and thank you for all the kind words I have already recieved from our dune family.

You make me proud to be an American. Your self sacrafice has shown how selfish some of us really are. Thank you Woody!