Brent's Accident {pt 1}

Wheew what a whirl wind I feel like we have been through the past 2 weeks.

Tuesday December 20th Brent was in a car accident that involved a deer. He was on his way to a job site in his company truck with his wireline truck behind him that his helper was driving. He was on a two lane highway pretty close to home, the car in front of him hit the tail end of the deer and the deer propelled over that car and landed in Brent's windshield. The deer was dead thank goodness but it still caused a lot of damage to Brent and the truck. Brent doesn't remember much about it, he does remember slamming on the brakes. His helper, Travis behind him saw it all. He says once the deer hit Brent he swerved onto on coming traffic, swerved back, ramped a pile of logs and was a few feet away from landing in the pond. He ended up in the ditch instead. Brent got out of the truck screaming, he was covered in deer blood and guts. 911 was called and he was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Travis called me and I was still at home with Lucas, we hadn't left for work/school yet. Travis was very calm and told me Brent only had a scratch on his eyelid and I honestly didn't think it was that bad so I went ahead and took Luke to school and headed to the hospital. I will never be able to think Travis enough for that.

I met the ambulance at the hospital and I then realized how bad it really was. He was covered in wires and tons of blood, his eye lid was split in two right up the middle and his clothes had been cut off of him. I didn't know what to say,do, or think. He was barley talking but they assured me he would be ok. His bosses and coworkers filter in and out of the tiny room all morning and Casey one of his co-workers stayed with me throughout it all, again I will not be able to ever thank him enough for doing that. They did a CAT scan and X-rays and concluded he had a couple of eye fractures and a fracture in his nose also and his eye lid would require the hands of a plastic surgeon. We stayed in the ER room until around 1:00 we were then released to go to the plastic surgeon's office. So we (Casey, my fil, and I) take Brent to the Dr. Bias' office. We get in and he gets his eye lid sewn up and we are told to come back in a week to get the stitches out and the fractures will heal on their own.

We go home and Brent sleeps for the next day he wakes up and is in some pain but most of the pain occurs when he is asleep and he can't stay asleep because the pain wakes him up. We try a few different pain meds and nothing helps much and the pain is progressively getting worse. He is also in a lot of pain when he moves his left eye to the right. Christmas came and went and Brent did a wonderful job being "present" for Lucas but he really over did it. Everyday since Christmas his pain has gotten much worse. This last Wednesday we go to see the doctor that put in the stitches to have them removed and for a follow up. His eyelid healed up perfectly and in time the scar will probably fade almost completely away. Brent told him about the pain and about not sleeping. Dr. Bias said it was nothing to worry about and prescribed him more pain meds. Brent is very wise and told me to schedule him an appointment with a eye surgeon here in town.He could tell something was not right. I had it scheduled for the same day and a few hours later we went to see Dr. Renner.

Dr. Renner spent 3 hours with Brent running tests and analyzing all his symptoms. To conclude that his eye was much worse than we knew. He wanted us to go to a surgeon in Little Rock that specializes in Brent's problem.

The appointment was made for Friday. He sees Dr. Brock and what has happened is his eye nerve is being squeezed in the fracture and that is keeping him from moving his left eye to the right. It will not heal on it's own and he will have to have surgery to fix it. His pupils are also different sizes and there is nothing they will be able to do for that. Not the news we wanted. But Dr. Brock has done a bunch of these surgeries and has a 100% success rate. There are risks and things could end up much worse than it is right now but we are praying all goes well and he will be back to normal after the surgery.

Surgery is scheduled for 12:30 on Tuesday. It will be an hour long surgery, it is invasive, they will have to completely put him to sleep and they will have to move his eye to get to where they need to be to fix things. I almost cannot stomach the thought. I have cried my fair share of tears and I am trying my hardest to be strong for Brent and keep life as normal as possible for Lucas. Tuesday is going to be a very long day and the 2 weeks after that will be hard as well. We will then go back to Little Rock and if all has healed ok maybe he will get released for work sometime soon after. He may even still have to go to a neurologist after all this is over for some nerve problems in the eye.

A few pictures of the accident, they are kinda graphic.

I always try and see some positive in the sometimes awful things that life throws at us. I will say I have learned a lot about myself and about my marriage and how strong it can be when it needs to be. How good Lucas is when he knows we are hurting. How few family and friends really step up when you really need them. And how so incredibly grateful I am for the few that have. And we have some really great co-workers all of that has helped me get though the day to day. I cannot tell you how hard some of the easiest tasks have been and how I will never take my strong and healthy husband for granted again. I will also never let a friend going though a hard time without doing something to help. I am so grateful God gives us trials and hard times to learn in.

Please keep us in your prayers on Tuesday.