Surgery has been averted for now! They are hoping that 8-12 weeks in a halo brace will help it heal up nicely. They can always go back and do surgery (and less of it) later if they need to. The bones that are broken have shifted back into place, the spinal cord is free and clear. The halo goes on tomorrow morning, and his goal for the day is to sit up in bed.

The doctor has no idea how come he wasn’t more seriously injured. Given the nature of the breaks, he landed on the top right of his head and flipped back. He’s one lucky kid, and I’m the luckiest mom in the world to have him.

Addison is in stable condition and good spirits. He even has a sense of humour about the whole thing and is pretty frustrated at not being able to move around. His head is in a striker frame, which keeps it immobile. He is mostly on his back, except when they lean him a little to one side or another, so he’s not in one position too long. They have to make sure his spine stays straight at all times.

I did take a picture to be able to show him what he looks like, but we have no plans to put it here. Family & close friends only.

Tomorrow morning, we meet with the surgeon who will decide when to operate on his neck, as at least two of the bones need to be stabilized with pins, screws and all sorts of metal. Addison figures he now has bragging rights when it comes to comparing injuries with his friends. He’s not in a lot of pain, considering, mostly from laying in one spot for so long, and his arms hurt the most. The affected vertebrae are C4, 5, 6, and 7, with 5 & 6 having the most damage. Also, they are ever-so-slightly pushed out of alignment. The striker frame is helping to pull it back. This mostly affects the use of his arms, which are ever so slowly seeing improvement, especially since he insists on moving them around. He has no grip in his right hand at the moment, and Saturday morning, could not raise that arm or that leg. By Saturday night, he could lift his own leg and move his arm some himself. The grip may take a long time, and will be the last thing to heal. To prove just how luck he is, I will point out he’s left-handed.

The hospital has a lot of textbooks there for us to read, and I must say the human body is a fascinating thing how it works. The nurses just love him, as he still says “thank you” when they do things for him, and sometimes, to him.

What happend exactly was he was coming home around 9:30 Friday night, and facing traffic, swerved to the soft shoulder to avoid a car. His tire went into a pothole or washed-out area and he flipped over, possibly hitting the guard rail. That car and a few others stopped immediately, cell phones in hand. Ron got there before the ambulance did, as it happened about 3 blocks from home. Like Ron said below, I stayed with him the first while, but as soon as we knew he was stable and wouldn’t need us throught the night, we decided to come home each evening and get some decent rest. Whatever day he has surgery, I’ll probably stay there the whole time.

To help cut down on the phone calls (I spent 2 hours on the phone this evening since Ron had been doing it up till then) and trying to keep track of who to email, we decided to put the most recent updates here in the weblog. They have a computer in the Family Room in the neuro intensive care where Addison is, but there are also other families who use it. I’ll update as soon as I know when he’s having surgery. Hopefully, we can have that done and be back to our local hospital by the weekend. Addison will be overjoyed when he can finally sit up.

We really appreciate all the thoughts, prayers, and offers of help.

“Mom, you know you and Dad say I should really think before I speak? Well, tonight at Ventures, somehow, for some reason, I wound up volunteering for something. It seem on Sunday, I have to be in a parade, dressed up like a clown and hand out balloons and healthy eating pamphlets.”