Last Saturday, September 14, Brian and I were both happily working on our separate projects while Aubrey enjoyed sleeping in late. I was listening to a podcast and pressing shirts. I was set up in the kitchen facing the family room because the night before Brian and I had watched a show while I made shirts. I was trying to stay on top of the 360 shirts that were ordered for our upcoming Stake Relief Society Just Serve activity.
Brian was in the garage working on a couple of projects. He had some rounds on the kitchen table with the local high school name and mascot cut out. He was cutting more wood in the garage for some storage containers he wanted to build.
Suddenly, Brian burst into the house and yelled, "ERIN! I NEED YOU.”
“We have to go. We have to go NOW. It's bad."
Well, luckily I had just changed out of my pajamas. I looked around and slipped on a pair of Brian’s slides, grabbed my purse, more towels for bandages, and we left.
Brian had his left hand in a towel pressed to his body and there was lots of blood and I could tell he was in so much pain and it was awful and I felt frantic and I felt helpless but I stayed calm on the outside and he was hurting so badly and the ER department was incredibly slow and Tanner and my dad gave him a priesthood blessing and the doctor in ER said he couldn't save his fingers and we had to be transferred by ambulance to a better hospital and I sent out texts and called Brian's parents and contacted an excellent hand surgeon from the Stake that I met one time and he said he could come to the new hospital and work on Brian and they couldn't give him much for pain because they weren't sure what procedures were going to be done and he had to soak his hand in hydrogen peroxide which was excruciating and my Bri was hurting so badly and we finally were transferred to MCH emergency room and Britney brought me lunch and shoes and warmer clothes and I was helpless and all of the protocols at the two hospitals were extremely cumbersome and it took way too long and finally we were moved to the second floor for surgery and the surgeon told Brian and I not to worry that he would take care of his fingers and he would be fine and then they wheeled him into surgery and then the surgeon came out before he started but after Brian was sedated and told me and my dad that it was much worse than he thought and he might need to amputate the middle finger and then we waited and waited and then the surgeon came out and said both were put back together but both index and middle fingers might need to be amputated and time would tell and I felt like I was living holding my breath for hours and hours and I finally got to see Brian and his pain was under control and we were put into a room and things finally felt a little more stable.
That is how our calm, productive, Saturday morning turned into not much production, pain, stress, lots of prayers, emergency surgery and a four day hospital stay.
A couple of things I just want to jot down for history's sake. (and I will spare everyone the gruesome pictures for history's sake!)
Saturday timeline, September 14th:
10:30ish ORMC ER
12:30-transferred to MCH ER
2:10- Surgery
3:50- Out of surgery
How Brian hurt his hand. He was cutting wood on a table saw in the garage, but it wasn't the saw that did the damage to his fingers, it was the wood. He was cutting a 2x4 into a 2x2 and it was reaching the end of the cut. He put two fingers up to push it aside so it could drop where he wanted it to. The saw hit a knot and the wood kicked back and slammed into his two fingers.
This text I sent to the group when we were in the first ER and he was having to soak his hand in hydrogen peroxide. Soaking his fingers was excruciating, but he was amazingly in control and just gritting his teeth and groaning and muttering this under his breath:
"Crap.
I'm going to start saying dirty words.
Mud.
This sucks.
I don't like x-ray people."
And to a machine that was beeping every 15 seconds: "QUIET." and then he added "Please."
He is hurting so badly, and I love him so much."
My group text to our kids after he got out of surgery.
3:52 update to kids: "He is out of surgery. It is his pointer and middle finger on his left hand. It was worse than the surgeon thought once he saw it in person. He was not able to repair the tendons. Brian will stay overnight and the doctor will check on him tomorrow. He thinks the index finger still has some blood flow and might not have but thinks the middle finger (and maybe the pointer) will probably need to be amputated about half way down.
We found out from reading the hospital records that his index finger had been amputated 70% and his middle finger 85%. Also, the top of both fingers had been shattered/splintered and the middle of both fingers had been broken.
Also, his overnight hospital stay turned into two more nights because his heartbeat was erratic and an echocardiogram was ordered. He hadn't been feeling any pain or shortness of breath, but his Apple watch had told him a few times in the past month that his resting heart rate had dropped to 40 a few times. Because it was the weekend, the test wasn't run until Monday and read until Tuesday. They ran one additional heart test on Tuesday afternoon and then finally sent him home to follow up with a cardiologist in two week.
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Mr. Independent....preparing to brush his teeth So happy to be going home |
As of today's appointment, Wednesday Sept 23rd, Dr. Babbel was very positive about Brian's pointer finger but still cautious about the middle finger. He was pleased that the middle finger had some blood flow and clotting but said it could still go either way.
We are so grateful for the many texts, calls, visits and especially prayers. We are praying that his fingers will continue to heal.
