Two weeks ago today I was in New Mexico, along with my sister and mom. We took a weekend trip to help my mom organize and pack some of my grandmas’ belongings (she recently passed). We normally leave New Mexico early afternoon to make it back to Colorado Springs by evening. That particular Sunday we decided to leave later in the evening since my cousin was coming from Albuquerque for a visit. I called Bryan to let him know of our plan of staying longer and I would make sure to call him when we did leave. Bryan had just finished doing some things around the house and was going to leave for a motorcycle ride; it was such a gorgeous day to be out on the bike. After having a cookout and enjoying catching up with my cousins, brothers and great aunts we decided it was time to leave, it was about 7 pm… no problem we should be home by midnight.As we were leaving I pulled out my cell to call Bryan, cell service is hit and miss in Rociada. I had one missed call from his cell phone that came in about 6:30. I called his number back, it went to voice mail. I called home excepting him to answer and tell me all about his ride. Instead my son answered and said that Bryan wasn’t home yet and he hadn’t called since around lunch time… I knew then that something had happened, I just wasn’t sure what. Time to check my voicemail… that's when things turned bad. I had a message from an emergency room nurse that Bryan was there at the hospital (in Pueblo) and I need to call as soon I received the message.
So here I was in New Mexico on the side of a mountain road calling the hospital anxiously trying to find out what happened to Bryan before my cell service was lost again. When I finally got through to the hospital… it was a runaround, they didn’t have a nurse by that name and Bryan wasn’t there. After me getting angry with the lady on the other end, she was going to do some checking and would call me back. Waiting for her to call back was horrible, not knowing about Bryan was one of the worst feelings ever. Bryan was there and was being treated in the ER, she then transferred me to his nurse. She let me talk to him right away… after talking to him I knew he was confused about things and he couldn’t really answer my questions. He kept telling me he was fine and that his chest hurt when he would take a breath, but he couldn’t remember anything about what happened. I talked to his nurse once again she was able to tell me about his injuries. From what she knew Bryan and his motorcycle went over an embankment and he was airlifted (Flight for Life) to Pueblo. He had 9 fractured ribs (#2-10), fractured Scapula (shoulder blade), and they had just called in a plastic surgeon to clean out his right elbow which was pretty tore up and full of debris.
By time we made it to the hospital (quickest trip ever from New Mexico), Bryan was out of surgery and was in his room. I was really surprised when I saw him laying there; he had a lot of swelling, massive bruising and lacerations, mostly all on his right side and back. He was still pretty confused about what happened and kept asking me the same questions every so often, the nurse explained it was characteristic with this kind of trauma, and she reassured us that the scan showed no signs of injuries to his head or neck.
The next morning Bryan was in extreme pain and his breathing was very shallow, morphine wasn’t working to control his pain. It was heart breaking to see him that way and even worse knowing that I couldn’t do anything to help him feel better. After the doctor examined him it was decided that Bryan was going to have an external epidural, they wanted to relieve some of his pain but more importantly they needed Bryan to expand his lung with each breath to avoid pneumonia or a collapsed lung. After the epidural was inserted we thought things would be better… until I noticed once he was back in his room his nurse didn’t connect the pump needed to manage the block. When I told the nurse about it… her standard answer was “I’ll check on that”. Her shift was almost over and she just left, she never checked or passed along the information to the next nurse. I was so mad; Bryan went without any kind of pain meds for almost four hours. Another nurse was finally able to get Bryan connected and she apologized profusely, she couldn’t believe the other nurse left her patient like that. I was happy that I didn’t see the “I’ll check on that” nurse back again.
During the week Bryan had great improvement, Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy started working with him getting in and out of bed, walking, up and down steps, reaching for objects, and grooming, they had a check list he need to complete before he could be released. On Friday they removed his epidural and his morphine pump and since the oral meds worked for him he was able to come home last Saturday.
He spent 6 days in the hospital (in Pueblo) and it is wonderful to have him home, I thank God every day. Monday he went to see the plastic surgeon and had his stitches and jp drain removed from his arm. His bruising on his back and hip is almost gone but, he still has swelling on his back and right hip. Sorry no pictures to post of injuries, I’m sure Bryan doesn’t want his back sided posted for everyone to see, hopefully I can get one of his arm when the bandage comes off in a few days. Bryan is still taking oral pain meds and with those fractured ribs and shoulder blade he can’t lay flat, so sleeping has been a challenge but after trying every chair in the house he found the comfy one. It’s a slow recovery, but he’ll get there.
I’ll try to post more tomorrow (hopefully) about his accident and his motorcycle damage. Thank you for visiting ~ Jovi
