Brayden's Accident , Part 1

One month ago yesterday my life and that of my family changed for ever. It started off great. We were having fun at Kaitlyn's team swim party for softball. We ate pizza and cookie cake and the girls got their trophies. We were all having a blast , swimming , shooting water guns and going off the diving board. Everyone was having a great time , all of my family included and then it happened and the world changed. Greg was going off the diving board . Brayden was waiting till daddy got finished on the ground beside the diving board. I tuned away so not to get splashed by big boy. When I turned back saw the diving board falling in the pool on top of my husband. I felt sheer panic for him but he popped up said he was okay and was wanting to find the coach whose house we were at to apologize. Then I heard panic behind me. I looked up from in the pool to see one of the coach's holding my son who looked dead. He was limp and covered in blood. When daddy was going off the diving board he heard it creak he bent down to investigate and when the board broke it hit my baby. My sweet kind small for a 3 year but almost 5 year ole baby. By the time I swam to the stairs and got out they had already called 911. It still didn't hit me how bad it was. One of the other mom's is a nurse and kept telling the coach on the phone they needed to hurry. They asked me what hospital, I said RMC, still not realizing how bad things were. In what was only 5 minutes or so but seemed like 3 hours the ambulance arrived. The EMT took one look at my handsome boy and said " No,mommy this baby isn't going anywhere near RMC we are airlifting him to Children's" .
         I sent Greg with the ambulance to take him to meet the helicopter. I understood we couldn't ride the helicopter with him but someone needed to go with him now, daddy was to upset to drive and I thought maybe I could. The ambulance took him to Word Alive's parking lot and waited for the helicopter , while we were waiting for the ambulance one of the moms called Greg's mom and dad, then Toni. Toni raced to me to get me to Word Alive. We spoke with the ambulance driver and EMTs. All of Oxford FD and police seemed to be there to help. The helicopter arrived and we knew he was in good hands, so we took Greg home to put on clothes and change. WE grabbed Brayden's Elmo ( his blankey) and his Blue's clues stuffed animal and raced to Birmingham. It was the longest hour in the car on the way down there. I spoke to Greg's mom who had been told it was Greg that was Hurst not Brayden. All I could get out when she asked if she needed to come was a squeaky " it's bad " .As we were getting off I 20 we got a call from the hospital that he was being brought up to PICU after his MRI and CAT scan. She told us where to park and where to go once we got in the building. We still got lost. We finally got up to the PICU and waited what seemed like an eternity.Mike and Britni got there thanks to Mike doing 100 on the way down. After about a half an hour the counseling staff came and spoke with us and then the pastoral services came. They finally brought him up from his tests and let us see him. It was a SHOCK.
           He was covered in dry blood. He had a breathing tube in. He had a neck brace on. He looked so little and so fragile, and so broken. It was another 20 minutes or so before we could go back and see him. We went back saw him and my heart broke. He looked so tiny. He was in pain and they gave him meds to help but just seeing him like that , no one should ever have too see their child like that.We spoke to countless doctors, nurses staff. The plastic surgeon said when the swelling goes down he would have to do surgery, that would require cutting him from ear to ear across the top of his head and pull his face down to fix it. The optometrist said his one pupil was blown , and thought it was the trauma and he would recover but want sure. Internal medicine, neuro, and trauma were all brought in on his case.They all told us conflicting information. We were going in and out of the PICU. He could only have 2 visitors at a time. All of Kaitlyn's team who had been there parents came to see him and support us. Toni and Channing were there as our rocks. His mom was on her way. It must have been so scary for mom, driving 8 hours by herself to get to us to her boy. Visiting hours stopped at 10:30 we knew we would need sleep , we knew we had a long road ahead. We got a hotel room a few miles from the hospital. Greg and Channing went to get us some sleep clothes, some food and clothes for the next day. They got us some diner and Chris from Sunday school came and visited and prayed with us. Mom got in about 1 o'clock in the morning. I showed her the pic. She was upset. Sher called dad so he would know she got here safe. WE got what sleep we could . We ate some breakfast and went back up to the hospital. Over night they had stitched his nose ( it had been split like a lizard tongue) . They also called him mini Houdini because he yanked out his catheter twice, got out his restraints several times. We were in and out again because of only 2 visitors. At lunch mom went and changed our hotels to a closer and safer one. Brother Scoot and Mrs. Sheila came and prayed over Brayden. He had some more visitors from ball and from church.
                         About 3 they said they were moving him to the BURN unit ( also infectious cuts) and that he would be in a private room and we could stay with him . They also were finally able to explain his injuries. His face had been fractured all over the place, where there had been impact from the board . The fractures were like cracks in the cement and not displaced so they weren't worried about those as much as his nose . Across his nose, above his eyebrows, his bones under the tear duct, his orbital socket . His nose was broken badly in the bridge and the cartilage was displaced. He was going to need surgery at that point there was no idea when or how invasive. Before they could move him to another unit he needed to be cleared by all departments involved in his case. Plastics, internal, Trauma, respiratory  and Neuro . The removed the breathing tube about 5 and  and checked his lung functions. He was breathing great. Then Neuro came in. He removed the brace . He asked does this hurt does that hurt. Brayden's answer was always " No, my toe hurts". He had a pulse ox monitor on and didn't like it. He kept asking for them to take it off.
                     He was all cleared and moved to his room about6. They got him a tray of dinner in case he got hungry. Greg ran to the hotel to get  some sleep clothes for him, he was staying the night. A nurse came in and he said he was hungry, we tried to offer him what we had in the room. The stores were closed. The cafeteria was closed. But no my boy wanted a waffle. Incidentally that's when I knew he would be okay. Baby boy loves waffles. We didn't have any. We were getting ready to have Greg run to the store to get some, when the unit clerk came in and said " I have some great news for you. I bought myself in a box of waffles today, if it is okay with y'all I would like to give him some" Most wonderful words I heard all day.The nurse brought back in a waffle and baby boy ate three quarters of it. I got chocked up. I knew we had a long road ahead but things were looking up.



This has been harder to wrtite than I thought going to break it up into several sections, but will try to do it all this week before I start to forget. I want to document this, get it all writen down. I dont think I will ever forget but I am not taking any chances.