Last Saturday Craig had a very bad accident that landed him in the hospital for nearly three days. He had started out the day by going to the Church Welfare Building to volunteer. He had left a note on the door for me to call him when I got up. I found the note when I was on my way out the door to go grocery shopping with my daughter Valerie. I gave him a quick call and he said that he would meet me at home afterward. After grocery shopping at Sprouts (our favorite place for veggies, fruits, and gluten-free foods) we went to H.E.B. to finish off the shopping for things that are generally cheaper there. We had just gotten started when I got a call from home. It was Craig and he sounded as if something were terribly wrong and he asked me to come home. I knew in my heart that he was really hurt or that something was terribly wrong.
Upon coming home..I ran in to discover that he was covering his mouth with a cloth and said to take him to the hospital. I had Val call William and tell the hospital and let them know that we were on our way. When we got there...we started to piece things together. He went in to sit down and tell the receptionist what was wrong and he was bleeding through his jeans in several places. They laid him down right away and did a quick assessment and then sent him through a body x-ray of some sort. He was in shock and his chest was hurting. They reminded him that if he was going to make one phone call that it should have been 911.
After a while, we realized that he had climbed a ladder to change the air filters inside the house and was approximately 10 feet up when the ladder gave way. He fell on top of the ladder which then fell on the tile floor. He ended up with a broken nose and stitches in his nose and on his outer lip and slightly up his face. He had several stitches in his mouth, had knocked a tooth mostly out and forced most of the teeth on his left side out of position. He ended up having oral surgery to remove the tooth and they found the root and metal peg had been forced into the bone (the tooth had been crowned). After two hours, it came out in pieces and part of the bone had to be cut out. He broke his thumb and sprang all his fingers on his left hand. He had surgery on his left hand to release the pressure so that he wouldn't have permanant nerve damage. His hand is now in a cast for six weeks. He has stitches in his left leg about two inches in length. He was bruised everywhere and was in so much pain and he lost a lot of blood. Valerie and William came to our house and cleaned up the blood so that when we did come home that we didn't have to come home to that memory. After the hospital...it was a tough couple of days for Craig...
....And Then
......Today
......Craig was out coaching his little soccer team. What a difference a week makes. He still has to get a new tooth in front and perhaps have another fixed that was fractured but the other teeth are moving back into position. He still cannot eat solid foods but he is getting there. He walks around fine. The hand with now lots of stitches and broken thumb doesn't appear to slow him down too bad. He does get tired easy and I can tell that he is still in pain and cannot do everything that he would like to do. For example, buttons and seatbelts are still not happening.
We are so grateful for the beginning of a new week and are so grateful for a faster recovery than we had thought. It will take a while...but today on the soccer field I could tell that for the most part....people had no idea what this man had actually been through....and it is seems that it will soon be just a story.
