UPDATE:

We are home. Ewan was discharged on Monday in the early afternoon. I didn’t make that clear at all here, so he is already acting like his crazy little 3yo boy self at HOME. And I know that it’s weird to put this information on Facebook and on our blog, but we have so many people whom we love that we want to keep posted, and it was really overwhelming to call and make sure that you all know. We just wanted to stay with Ewan and not spend any time away from him until we knew more about what was going on. Bottom line, every doctor who has seen him feels that he will be absolutely fine (and is already almost there), really, like this never happened. :) But he might be irritable and moody for the next several weeks mixed in with his sweetness, but that’s a completely normal recovery. We’ll just refer to him as Ewan, version 3.4 amped. Ha.

…

We are overwhelmed. We have literally been to hell and back within the last 30 hours, and we were dragged back from that scary place by the love of our friends and family and the expertise of the staff at Children’s Hospital. I honestly have no idea how to thank everybody for your prayers and the way you’ve showed up and offered help and strengthened us. I feel sadly inept and like I’m just spewing out “thank you” every second, but really need you all to know that I mean it.

From the depths of my renewed soul, I mean it.

Here’s Ewan’s story.

On Sunday afternoon, Hank and our friend, Sam, took the boys to the park to play baseball. Ewan was standing on the pitcher’s mound next to Sam when he was hit by a line drive to the left side of his face. When Hank called, I could hear the raw panic and fear in his voice as he asked me to come with ice for Ewan. Time has never moved so slowly.

I got there within about five minutes and we took Ewan to our neighborhood fire station. They assessed him immediately and took him by ambulance, with Hank by his side, to the hospital closest to us and called in the trauma team. He never lost consciousness, but was difficult to keep alert. I drove separately, and the EMTs were awesome in keeping everyone calm – God love ’em. They told me that they didn’t expect to use their siren or lights, but if for some reason they did, I shouldn’t follow right behind them (for safety). I took my backroads shortcut, but when I reached the intersection near the hospital, the ambulance blazed by with its lights and siren on. Afraid does not begin to describe where I was at that moment, shouting alone in my car for the light to turn green.

When we got into ER, there were too many people – it was confusing. The first person to identify himself to me was the chaplain and I couldn’t see what was happening to Ewan, but I saw that Hank was with him. I fired that chaplain from this team on the spot, telling him also that while I admired his work, he could just get the hell out since we would not be needing him. Scared the ever loving bejesus out of me that he was there.

God bless America my heart stopped a bajillion times.

I think that we were at the hospital for around 2-3 hours. They ordered and read his CT scan; he was sick a couple of times; they monitored him; told us they’d like to keep him overnight for observation, then finally the ER doc put in orders to transfer him via Life Flight to Children’s Hospital. Neither Hank or I could make sense of this. No one would say that he was imminent danger, but this Life Flight thing had us scrambling and searching for what they weren’t saying. A million things were slamming into us all at once. I couldn’t touch Ewan enough, hold him closely enough, kiss him enough, smell him enough. We felt so ridiculously desperate, making phone calls for help, friends being there before I could hang up the phone, family booking flights to come be with us. Honestly, we thought that the very worst thing was happening and I refuse to type it out. I swear I need an intervention, because I’ve never had such forcefulness or profanity in any prayers as I did right then.

Ewan was, as always, a trooper. He just keep asking to go home. He did everything they asked of him so bravely.

We were afraid that they wouldn’t let us fly with him, but thanks to Hank, they let me go with him in the helicopter to Children’s. He was so still and stoic on the six-minute flight; not a peep out of him. He didn’t look around for me, just had lion’s courage. And I have to tell you, something happened during that short flight. There was a peacefulness and quietness up there and I had this small feeling start to grow that we were going to the exact right spot.

We landed on top of the building and he was ushered to their ER. For the remainder of Ewan’s stay, top notch stuff happened. Questions were answered without any fidgeting or “I just don’t know…”. Ewan has a few fractures around his left eye and one from his skull down into his sinuses. He has a possible small bruise on his brain, which was so small on the CT scan that it could have just been an anomaly, so the neurosurgeon was not concerned, but still consulted with his team and the concussion team. Ewan squeezed their hands, lifted his arms, wiggled his toes, and counted their fingers, all to their satisfaction. He was considered a minor TBI since he never lost consciousness (minor!!! I can’t even imagine “serious”!). He didn’t get sick again and even ate a little bit late last night. And every time they asked him if he was in pain, he said no. Unbelievable.

He was checked a lot and by many different doctors and a few nurses. They all seemed very happy with how he was doing and continued to progress, but he was kept overnight for observation in the ER. He still isn’t completely out of the woods, as there are two concerns. That fracture into his sinus cavity needs to be watched, especially for the next couple of weeks for any kind of cerebral spine fluid leakage; and he has an air pocket present from the trauma that could get infected, so he’s on an antibiotic to thwart that off. He looks like he’s been smacked by a truck – his left eye is swollen nearly shut, he has a very nice softball seam imprint on his forehead, and his eye is the color of an eggplant. But his eyes were checked thoroughly by an opthamologist this morning and no bleeding, scratches, or damage to his eye was found. We have lots of follow up visits to have over the next month to monitor him and I have an arsenal of people to call should we notice anything concerning, but he’s home and he’s cracking jokes and told Hank this afternoon that today “had been a really good day.”

God bless him.

The worst part?

He can’t go mining.

Nope. No nose picking at all. And that’s a big ol’ bummer, because that’s how he likes to spend his free time.

But he feels like he’s got a pretty good wink right now, seeing as his left eye won’t open. He’s pretty proud of that.

And by the way? We had so many offers of help and food and rooms for family to stay in and “do you need help packing” and “can we come play with your dog for you” that we’ve literally had to turn away friends’ offers – that’s how awesome you guys are. We knew that we had good friends but WOW. We know that we can’t walk this life alone, and you all showed us that we don’t even need to think about trying.

I thought about apologizing for how much we’ve needed you the past couple of days and will continue to, but instead I’m just going to say…

Love ya.

Lots.

And P.S.: Still asking for prayers. We’d like to be so far out of these woods that we’re dancing in the nice meadow beyond. Meet you there.

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