Post Op

 When he got out of surgery, they put him in ICU. He was heavily sedated because he had a breathing tube in still.  He had to have that in for at least 4-5 hrs post op because of all the swelling, or it might squish his lungs.  Then they made him come to before taking the tube out to make sure he could breath on his own.  THAT WAS BRUTAL!!! Nothing worse than the feeling of choking and gagging and having your hands tied to the bed, and everyone telling you to "just relax". :/  I thought he was going to bust through those straps!  

     Then over the next two days, he had lots and lots of friends and family in to see him, which was really nice :). The swelling in his eyes went down and they took the pic line out of his neck...hallelujah!!! 

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

So on Wednesday I let our kids came in to see their dad for the first time and helped move him out of ICU and into a regular hospital bedroom.

Our moving crew

The kids helping :)

Surgery

Dr. Lee was the neurologist on call, and He is ranked one of the best spinal cord surgeons in Las Vegas, thank goodness!  Dr. Lee performed the surgery exactly as planned. No complications, no surprises. A cage was placed where T5 used to be and two rods and 4 screw on each side were placed to repair his damaged spine. They also did a bone graft from his hip to help fuse things together. Because he had to be placed on his stomach for the entire surgery, they placed a chest tube in for precaution. A pic line was placed in his neck :( and of course a catheter and breathing tube :((( The surgery took 4 1/2 LONG hrs.  The other, less concerning thing that happened, was when he crashed,  his helmet was shoved into his goggles, which gave him a little road rash on the forehead, nose, and cheeks.  It also gave him two black eyes. You can see in the pictures how fast they swelled up even before surgery!  After being on his face for the duration of the surgery, it caused a lot of blood to pool in his eyeballs along with even more swelling, making his eyes look THE worst of all!  Between the right eye and the pic line on the right side of his neck, I really had a hard time not passing out!  Haha. 

Right after surgery

 

 After breathing tube removed

Side view of pic line and gross eye

The Turning Point

March 24th, 2013. Lake Havasu, AZ

     It was the third lap in the WORCS pro ATV race. Josh jumped a tabletop and landed in a pothole, that sent him end over end on his quad. Which wouldn't have been too bad, except the quad plowed right into his back!  And even though he landed on his head, he never lost consciousness. He tried to get up out of the way before Dillion, who was right behind him, landed on him.  But he could not move.  Well, Dillon saw the whole thing, and did not hit him, thank goodness!  But the guy after him, Josh Row, who is a fierce competitor, stopped to see if he needed help, which he did. Thank you Josh. :')   Instantly, help was there and they redirected traffic till they got him off the track safely. 

He was taken to the hospital in Lake Havasu.  They did a full CAT scan and that's where we learned he had shattered his T5 vertebrae and pieces of it was in the spinal cord.  I literally passed out!

We had the local LDS missionaries come to the hospital and assist Max in giving Josh a priesthood blessing.  So when they got there, we realized one of them actually had served in our home town a few months ago and we even had him over for dinner before he was transferred to Lake Havasu.  SMALL WORLD!  As soon as he got that blessing, I knew everything was going to be o.k.  He was then flighted to Las Vegas to Sunrise hospital to have an MRI and surgery to repair his broken back. 

They are known for being the best spinal cord injury hospital in Las Vegas.. After arriving there, he had a MRI and that's when we learned that the spine was actually severed.