Emily

The CRASH!!

SUNDAY April 10th
Well it has been a very long week for me this week. For those of you that do not know last Sunday, as I was finishing my wedding invitations, I received a phone call from Kane. He was in the ER and had been in a car accident. Kane had been at a job interview in Dallas and was driving home when a semi jackknifed in front of him and Kane stopped just before hitting the vehicle. Unfortunately the cars behind him were not as luckily and it ended up being a 5 to 6 (we are still unsure) car pile-up. To make things even worse Kane's car, a SUV, and a truck with a trailer all caught on fire. (I did not discover this until later but everything in Kane's car got burned up which meant that his cell phone; wallet with all his money, drivers licenses, and social security card; all his clothes (he had just done laundry and had allot of his clothes in the car); his keys; and his backpack with all his books and notes for the year)From all reports all 3 cars are no longer. Some how Kane made it out of the car and sat down on the side of the road. Kane's injuries were some singed hair, cuts and bruises all over his body, and a very, very nasty injury to his left hand and forearm. The injury allowed for a clear view of the tendons in his hand as well as the blood vessels and some chunks were taken out of his lower wrist. Kane called my home number and not my cell because it was the only phone number he could remember. Needless to say the hospital he was at told me that they had him stabilized, but due to his injuries he had to be transferred to a different hospital. I started packing and called his mother to let her know what was going on. I got the call back that they were transferring him to Scott and White in Temple. Mom and I were in the car and on the way as soon as we knew which way we were going. Of course there was a massive rain storm over Oklahoma with rain coming in waves across the road and visibility almost nothing. I finally got to the emergency room and stayed with him there till we finally got transferred into a room on the orthopedic floor in the hospital.

Monday April 11th
Well spent most of the day with Kane trying our best to get the nurses to manage his pain. Kane was also very unhappy about not being allowed to eat since the hospital kept changing the time he was supposed to have his surgery. The orthopedic surgeon was going in to clean all the dirt and glass out of his wound and to try to repair the shredded tendons in his hand. They took him into the surgery about 1:30 pm (though the original forecast called for surgery at 8:00 am, then 11:00 am, then 12:00 pm) My mom, Kane's mother and Stepfather, sister Katie, myself, and allot of other people that I was too tired to really be able to remember were there. At that point I had been awake 29 hours and was not looking at sleep anytime soon. The surgeon told us that the surgery had gone well and they were able to repair the tendons in his fingers and wrist (which means that he would be able to move his fingers and wrist). They brought Kane back from that surgery and Kane, his mom, and I spent all the rest of that day with Kane just trying to help him recover and keep up with his pain medicine.

TUESDAY April 12th
Kane did not sleep all that night and into the morning he was hurting too badly and the only thing that he seemed to really enjoy eating was tea. I stayed awake 39 hours before I finally made took little naps with Kane. At that point I was sleeping half on Kane's bed and half on a plastic covered cot beside his bed. We found out that day that they were going to do another surgery the next day to graft skin back over his open wounds. The plan was to go in and cut a flap from Kane's left forearm along with the radial artery that feed it and move it to cover the open area on his hand. Then they planned to take a skin graft from his thigh to cover the flap sight and the open areas on the lower part of his forearm. To get a skin graft you pretty much take a cheese grater to someone's skin and scrap off the skin and stretch it and put it onto the area that needs skin. The projected surgery time was noon the next day.

WEDNESDAY April 13th
Kane and I were able to sleep a little bit better that night (as I recall we slept 3 hours straight). They took him down to pre-op at 10:00 am. No one was pre-pared for this and we were all shocked. But then we spent until 2:30 pm in pre-op waiting for them to take him to surgery. His old roommate Jody came to visit during this time, so it was nice to see him. We talked with Kane and waited for them to take him to surgery. They took him to surgery and my Mom made me leave the hospital for the first time to get something to eat. We got back and Kane was in surgery from 2:45pm to 6:00pm. The surgeon talked to us to say the surgery was a great success and that he would not be able to move his fingers for a least a week and that the healing time would be 6 weeks. Then he would have 3 months of physical therapy and then it would be 6 months before Kane would have full strength in his hands. Kane was in allot of pain and we had some nurse problems. It was another long night.

Thursday April 14th
Well we had all sorts of Doctors who came in and finally we were able to find out that everything was looking good and Kane could go home if he wanted. Kane's pain was not really in control at that point, but he wanted to go home. We spent most of that day packing -up and trying to get Kane on some kind of pain medicine that would help him out. We finally left the hospital and drove to College Station about 2:00. We got to his mothers house and moved stuff around the house until Kane was a little bit comfortable. I went out and got him some movies to watch. We finally got everything settled down to watch "The Incredible" about 9:00pm. I am not sure how much we watched but about 1/4th of the way through Kane, my mom, Kane's mom, and I were all fast asleep. That night finally Kane and I were able to sleep with no interruptions.

FRIDAY April 15th
Mom and I were watching Kane because Kane's mother had to go to work. So I went by Kane's apartment to check on his fish and cat(his friend Jacob had been taking care of them). I helped clean the apartment up a little bit, cleaned cat litter, did the dishes, and made sure that Max was played with. Then we contacted all Kane's professors and tried to work out school stuff. Kane was able to get up and walk around a little bit that day. Later the in afternoon he finally was able to get up enough energy to go to the apartment get his mail, checkbook, and check on his place. We then went to Cingular and were able to get him a replacement phone for free (YEAH!!) We ended up getting back to his mother's house about 7:00 and mom was ready to ship me to McKinney and his mom was ready to ship Kane to Goldthwaite. Then I drove to my sisters, but we did not leave until almost 8:30 because Kane and I had to say our good-byes. Then I got the Laura's was up until 1:00 am to talking to Kane.

SATURDAY April 16th
Kyle woke me up at 7:30 am playing and running around. We shopped with Laura and got me some new clothes. I talked to Kane about three times before 2:00 that afternoon just checking up on him. Finally we drove back to Tulsa.

That was my week in a nut shell though there allot of things that I left out and forgot. Allot happened and I am exhausted and really hate being away from my baby. Anyway Kane is doing pretty good considering and things keep moving fast.

Posted by Emily at April 17, 2005 10:38 AM