Backyard Candle Co.

Ok, so here how the last couple of weeks have been going

round here....

On Wednesday, it will be two weeks since my youngest son

Sawyer, who is 11,

suffered significant trauma

after he rolled our ATV.

He was riding in our yard with his best friend,

Cale, (who wasn't injured, Praise Jesus)

when the rollover happened.

Sawyer was driving and admits he was driving toooooo fast.

The boys came in crying and Sawyer was pretty battered

and bruised.

We pretty much decided right away to take him to the ER

because I figured he needed stitches, had some broken ribs

or something.

By the time we got there, Sawyer was white as a ghost and drenched in sweat.

The Docs ran a couple tests,

and discovered he had a lacerated spleen and was bleeding internally.

SAY WHAT???

So things moved pretty quickly after that.

He was taken by ambulance to the U of I Childrens Hospital (we are sooooo blessed to have this WONDERFUL hospital so close to us.  We loved every single Dr. and Nurse that we had)

where at 11pm they did a procedure to stop the bleeding.

They went through a vein in his leg and coiled the main aertary feeding his spleen.

After the procedure, he was in ICU for a day, then was transferred

to the main floor for 6 more days.

We had some ups and downs in those six days.

He was on STRICT bedrest and was just so tired and weak

from his low hemogloben.  A 12 is considered normal, and Sawyers

got as low as 6.5.  They were worried about additional

internal bleeding but watched him thinking it would clot on its own.

And Praise the Lord, it did.

His hemogloben slowly started to rise and he was able to get out of bed, although he was extremely weak.

Exactly one week after the accident,

he was able to come home.

We have to be very careful for the next 5 weeks

as he can NOT be hit in the stomach,

or run, jump, or do any "boy" type activities.

Football is totally out for this year.

If any of you know Sawyer, not playing football is a huge deal.

The child LIVES for fall and the beginning of football season.

He is handling it pretty well tho.

I think the fact that he gets to start school a week later than everyone else, might be helping a bit!

He knows how blessed he is.

This could have been so much worse.

We heard many stories of ATV rollover accidents while in the hospital, and I thank

Jesus everyday for sparing his life and healing his little body.

We pretty much broke every ATV rule there is...

1. NEVER ride double.. we did that

2. Wear a helmet... we didn't do that

3. Ride the right size ATV for your age... ours is for adults.

4.  Wear protective gear such as jeans, gloves, etc... we didn't do that and had MAJOR road rash on his left side because of it.

I know that Sawyer and Cale have learned a very valuable lesson from all of this....

Not that they are EVER getting back on it tho.

Anyway....

thank you to all of the prayer warriors and thank you Lord for watching over my lil boy.

We are home, he is healing.... All is well.

P.S.

In three months, we will know whether his spleen survived.

Since they coiled off the main aertary, there is a chance that it may not.  Only 30% of it is needed to do it's job so we are praying that it

will. 

If it doesn't survive, it will die off, and dissolve into his body.

People live without spleens all the time,

but we will have to be very careful of infections.

He would have to take antibiotics every day till he is at a certain age, have immunizations every 5 years

(they gave him boosters before we left hospital, just as a precaution)

and we would get a "standing" prescription for if he ever gets a fever.  We would immedietly have to start the antibiotic and THEN call the doctor.

Prayers for a full recovery to his spleen would be AWESOME!

Thank you so much!

Love,

T