My sweet momma was in a car accident on Thursday morning. She was not wearing her seat belt and was ejected. She was life flighted to the hospital in Idaho Falls. She has a brain injury, a fractured neck and back a broken jaw, cheek and sinus. Plus 7-8 fractured ribs. They put her on a ventilator because she was not breathing enough on her own. The doctors have kept her unconscious since the wreck because her brain is swelling and they are trying to keep her ICP (intercranial pressure) down. It has to stay under 20 or it is causing more brain damage. She had a bad night Friday night where it climbed above twenty and they had to use a medication to lower it. When she is moved it gets high but goes right back down after they are done messing with her. They did let her try and wake up Friday morning but she was extremely upset. She ripped our her IV and tried to rip out her ventilator and her ICP shot up to 75 so they put her back to sleep.
Her fractured neck will require surgery to stabilize it. It is at risk of paralyzing her so they are keeping her in a brace until her brain stabilizes enough to do surgery. Her jaw will also need surgery to wire it shut and if she still needs a ventilator when they do that than they will have to give her a trachyotomy.
We won't know the extent of her problems until they can do an MRI and see what kind of brain damage there is and what other damage there is to her neck. The brain injury is on her frontal lobe which controls her movement, personality, memory and emotions. The doctors said that her brain swelling should peek around 5 -6 days. We are at day 3.
This has been an extremely trying time for me. I cry most of the day. I had just talked to my mom 30 minutes before her accident. It is so wierd how life changes in the blink of an eye. We are all staying hopeful for the best. We say lots of prayers. My mom is the strongest woman I know. If anyone can recover from this it will be her. Don't take anyone for granted. We don't know what is going to happen. I would give anything to be able to hear my moms voice right now and to see her smile.