August 15, 2011 "So...What Happened?"

"So... what happened?" Well, my dad was in a motorcycle accident on Sunday, July 31, 2011.
"So... what happened?" Well, I'll start from the beginning. I had been feeling sick. Sick, in the summer? I know, it was a total bummer. (That almost rhymed..) I couldn't sleep Saturday night, so of course, when my alarm went off on Sunday morning for church, I wasn't to quick to hop out of bed. I decided that for my health, I had better stay home. No, it was not just to skip church.I LOVE church. I was quite disappointed that I couldn't attend.
I rolled out of bed around 11 or noon, and was put to work. Mom needed help on some research for the new website for the business. I offered my services in exchange for a cup of soup and some green tea for my throat. A few hours into the research, Mom got a phone call. For the first whole minute it seemed like, nothing but gut wrenching gasps broke away from her ghostly presence. At the first millisecond of the first gasp, my fingers went numb. I knew that something was very wrong. "Mom... what happened?" It was less of a question of more of a command. I needed to know whatever was happening. Her voice quivered over the phone.. "So... what happened? Is he okay? Where are you? Did you call someone? Should I come? .....sure." I had only clues of what was happening on the other side of this phone call. She was doing a good job of holding in the tears, but after the word, "...sure" fell from her lips, the tears simultaneously fell. She whispered into the phone.. "You're in a lot of pain, aren't you?" After exchanging a few more words, she hung up. To her surprise, I was no longer in the room. I ran back into the living room with a poorly packed over night bag and said two words. "Let's go."
I still didn't know what happened, but I knew I had to go. Mom stood still. "Dad hit a deer with the motorcycle." Nothing about me changed. I was not crying. I did not move. I spoke the same two words. "Lets. Go." Mom was almost offended. I didn't want to cry until I knew something was wrong. I was in shock, and I wanted to go. I slowed down a second and looked into her eyes. I stepped forward and gave Mom a big hug, and we cried on each others shoulders.
Having my bag already packed, I was more than ready to go. Mom sent me to find my brother, who went out to eat with friends, and tell him the news. I found him outside the golf course lodge, and told him what I knew. Mom and I finally decided to take off and my brother was to stay home to take care of the dogs. We didn't know how long of an endeavor this would be.
Okay, okay. That's what happened. Well that's only my side of the story. You're wondering about the accident. "So...what happened?"
Dad was on his way to the black hills on his motorcycle to work at Sturgis Bike Rally. Mom and my brother were to head a few days later, and I about a week later. Instead of taking interstate, Dad took highway. Highway 14 to be specific. Usually a pretty desolate highway, not too much traffic. Note: Dad was driving about 70 mph, it was around 1:00 in the afternoon, and he had no helmet on. Anyways; out of the long weeds beside the road came a deer. No warning, no time for reaction: he wasn't there, and then he was. We believe that rather than Dad hitting the deer, the deer hit him. That little sucker came out of no where and forced his whole body into Dad's right leg. Dad claims he remembers seeing the deer and then next he remembers rolling/ &rolling/ &rolling/ &rolling. He rolled down the pavement and took off lots of skin on his arms, legs, and side. There was a car not far behind him that watched the whole thing. She was an EMT and stopped and knew what to do. The next car that came along was a nurse. Pause: Two blessings already. There were two cars that came along (hours could have easily gone by with no traffic) AND here was a NURSE and an EMT! Though he doesn't remember the actual contact of the crash, he was conscious the whole time. He could talk and communicate, and shows no sign of brain damage. Without a helmet?! Impossible! Look up Matthew 19:26. I don't know if Dad even knows how blessed he was that day.
He was between Pierre and Phillip and they didn't know which hospital to go to. They decided to take him to the Pierre hospital, but would have to wait over an hour for the ambulance. With the temperature of the day being between 90 and 100 and laying on the hot black asphalt, let alone the pain of the accident, he was very uncomfortable. Blessing: Sometime during the wait someone stopped with a tinker bell (ahahahaha!) baby blanket and held it over Dad to shield him from the sun. Blessing: Sometime during the wait some fishermen came by and took their buckets of ice and poured them around Dad's body to keep his temperature from rising too much. Finally the ambulance came and took him to Pierre. From Pierre they were going to fly him to Sioux Falls. How did we know all this you ask? No doctor ever called us. No nurse ever called us (besides the off duty one that found him on the road). Somehow, Dad managed to work his thumbs enough to text us. That's how we knew what was going on. So note to doctors or nurses: be in contact with your patient's family! Due to complications (some say there were no helicopters available, some say the doctors at Pierre wanted to spend hours cleaning all his wounds before they sent him to Sufu) they kept him at Pierre for about three hours after he arrived (estimated time: 7:00 pm). Then, they decided to drive him to Sioux Falls (about a four hour drive). All the while, he was experiencing a lot of pain.
Is that okay if I jump back to Mother and me? Okay thanks! Well we headed out to Pierre, then we heard they were flying him to Sufu, so we turned around in Huron and headed to Sioux Falls, where we heard that they were going to drive him. We had a LOT of time to kill. All the while, we were pretty much freaking out. Well, Mom was. Bouts of crying and distress, and who's to blame her?! I was making the calls. Calling the friends and family and business associates and warning them of the current situation. "So... what happened? When we got to Sioux Falls, we attempted to enjoy a patty melt and some hashbrowns (yes, we both ordered the same thing). Then we went to Lewis. Then we went to Starbucks (for meeee) and it rocked. I also got a free zucchini muffin! Yum! Then we waited at the hospital for a very long time. Around 10:30, I believe, is when the ambulance came and we got to see him. He had not a scratch on his face or anywhere on his head. His knuckles and elbows had little to no skin on them, along with parts of his arms, legs, and side. After waiting for the x-rays to be sent and after waiting for all the paper work to be filled out, and after we got Dad into a hospital room, Mother and I left the hospital at about 1:30 am. We stayed at my mom's brother's house nearby, and to our surprise, my little cousin (age 11?) was still awake and full of clever questions. His main concern, though, was if the deer had antlers.
"So... what happened?"
Through ups and downs and two weeks of the hospital, much progress has been made. Dad's digestive system was having trouble waking up from the trauma of the accident and the amount of pain killers. Through prayer, that problem is all cleared up. He had two surgeries, one to put an external fixator on his broken right leg. Then, for convenience only, since the skin on his knee healed in time (blessing!), the decided to take off the external fixator and put a rod in his bone. During surgery, they found that his knee was broken in two places, which they wouldn't have found out otherwise. Before, he could barely lift up a cup to drink out of it, but as I saw last, he is walking (well...hopping) almost 200 feet. He got moved from Avera in Sioux Falls to a swing bed in Madison, SD. His recovery will be long, but he WILL recover, and that's what matters. Thank you every who has supported us or visited us or sent us gifts, but especially, thank you to everyone who is praying for us. There is a long road ahead. So, now if anyone asks you, "So.... what happened?" You'll know exactly what to say! God Bless!