The accident

I know that many of you know the details of what happened to Layton this past week but since this is a journal of sorts for our family I am posting it here (along with a picture that may not be for the weak of stomach) so bear with me.

Tuesday, June 2 the boys were playing outside enjoying the cooler weather and I was inside uploading pictures from the camera to the puter. I heard a horrible scream from Layton and immediately knew something was wrong. I ran outside to find Layton standing and screaming. The boys told me he fell out of the tree. So I lifted up his shirt and found a nickel sized hole in his side that was pouring blood. I put pressure on it with the butt of my hand and half dragged/carried him to the porch. I ran and got him some Tylenol, tried to call Matt with my shaking hands (missed dialed the # a couple times), and asked Chase to get McKay up from his nap and into the car. Matt finally called back (after me calling numerous times) as I was walking out the door. I told him to meet me at the ER because Layton had been impaled by a stick. All the way to the hospital Layton was crying, moaning, and struggling to breathe. Matt was waiting for us at the ER and when he got a look at the wound he knew it was bad. Layton had several chest x-rays and CT scans done to asses the damage and was put on morphine for the pain. After a bunch of waiting and wondering what was going on the DR came in and told us we were being sent by Life Flight to Primary Children's hospital in SLC. We asked about a possibility of going to Boise since my family is there. So after checking into that we were cleared to be sent to Boise. At that point we had been told that Layton had suffered some liver damage and they were worried about his breathing because he kept grunting, but that was all we knew. Matt left to get the boys ready to head to Boise while Layton and I waited for the airplane (they sent a plane due to the thunderstorms....a helicopter would not have been able to fly). Right before the ambulance arrived to take him to the airport they order another chest xray because his heart rate had gone up. Everyone was reviewing the xray and kept mentioning something around his heart was bigger although I was not told this (I was overhearing conversations). We boarded the plane about 8:15 pm and arrived in Boise at 9:10pm. We were loaded into another ambulance and taken to St. Lukes. My mom, dad, Jaron and Ryan were there when we arrived. Matt and the boys arrived about an hour after we got there. It took almost 2 hours for the DR to come up to see Layton and he didn't seem to think it was too bad. However, after reviewing all the xrays and CTs it was decided that Layton had to go in for surgery. At 1:15 am they came to take him down to surgery. We were in the waiting room and Matt's parents showed up. After almost an hour in surgery they called to let us know he was doing well and that the DR was closing up the wound. We waited and waited some more and finally got another call about 2 hours after surgery began. She told me that he was still in surgery and that the DR had decided to scope the wound and was pulling all kinds of debris out. At 4:15 the DR came down to tell us that Layton was in the PICU recovering. He showed us pictures from the surgery. The stick went across the top of his diaphragm bruising it as it went and the bottom of his right lung bruising it as well. The scariest part was when the DR showed us that the stick stopped less than an inch from his heart. It makes me sick to even think about how close we came to losing him.

Layton spent most of June 3rd in the PICU recovering. He moved to the Peds floor late afternoon and the next couple of days were spent trying to manage the pain (most of it due to the chest tube that was draining the fluid from his chest cavity) and getting a barrage of antibiotics. He had a rough few days but was able to pass some of the time playing video games with his dad. Matt and I took turns spending the night with Layton and taking care of him and McKay. Saturday the chest tube came out. It was a much simipler process than I was expecting. They gave him a dose of his pain med and then the DR undid the dressing, cut the stitches that were holding the tube in, asked Layton to take a deep breath in, and then he pulled the tube out. There had to have been at least 8 inches of tube in his chest. It is no wonder that he was hurting so much. He was a different boy once it came out. He was much happier and really had no more pain. Yesterday was the big day and he was released! He was so excited to be able to come home! We are so grateful that he is home with us and that there isn't a different ending to this story. He has a long summer ahead of him with recovery due to the liver damage. He is unable to ride a bike or horse, wrestle with his brothers, no contact sports, etc. But like I said, we will take that over the alternative. Thank you to everyone for your thoughts and prayers. It means so much to know that there are so many people out there that care for us. Thank you to our families for your help with the kids. We don't know what we would have done without the help. We love and appreciate everyone! Thank you.

The wound

Being loaded onto Life Flight

In the plane above all the storms (notice the clouds out the window)

Bark pieces removed during surgery (click on pic to enlarge it)
Going from PICU to his regular room

Our camp in the corner of the room
The tree and the offending branch (the one to the left with bark missing from it)