Dear readers and friends,

As much as I wanted to keep this part of my life private, because of the happy outcome I want to share this with you now.

On October 14th, a beautiful Sunday, my daughter, myself and our new special friend spent the day flying ultralight aircrafts with the birds soaring over the colorful leaves of Autumn. Our afternoon was slated to feast on salmon with more friends and their children and with two other sets of parents found the perfect opportunity to sit a six year old, a three year old and my daughter, Jade, a seven year old (who is an experienced rider) on a beautiful and gentle Appaloosa horse for pictures. The pictures were great. The girls laughing and flashing peace signs, proud as we laughed at their funny faces for the camera. We were done and ready to get the salmon cooking. A strong father and cameraman took his three year old off of the horse first…turned for a moment to set her down preparing to help the other two girls next…and was startled to see from the corner of his eye that the horse suddenly took off to run to his buddy across the field.

The six year old lost her balance first, as my daughter Jade held onto the mane and squeezed with her legs to stay on. The weight of the six year old was too much and as she toppled she pulled my Jade down too landing on her. She had the wind knocked out of her and sat in the field, her eyes large trying to catch her breath. Jade lay motionless next to her. I couldn’t run fast enough to my girl…others were already trying to talk to her. I placed my body over her and spoke into her ear. “Jade…this is Mom. I need you to remember all the things I told you about good things. Remember the light.” She groaned an “uh huh” and her eyes rolled, dazed. She groaned some more and began to writhe in pain. I wrapped my arms around her head, to keep her still, and my hand landed into the pool of blood that had been oozing out of the back of her skull.

“We have a head injury!!!” I screamed and in an instant I was lifted with Jade still in my arms into the back of a car and raced to our small town emergency room. The description of the ER team stabilizing her, with IV’s, neck braces and log rolls when the vomiting started is mixed with my Jade screaming in pain and passing out. When I walked with the doctor to the CAT Scan room I knew from the doctor’s clutching fists on the desk as she read the scan that the news was grim. She turned to me and said “come with me…she has a skull fracture…we have to get her to a neurosurgeon right away.” I slide down the hospital room wall and wanted to throw up.

“Doernbecher’s Children’s Hospital in Portland is sending PANDA. Their pediatric trauma aircraft to transport her to Portland.” Three hours later the plane arrived at the airport where the ambulance transported us and took us on another hour plus to the waiting trauma team. “She has a decompressed skull fracture with a ping-pong ball size portion pushing into her brain. We need to do surgery right away.” At five am on Monday, October 15th, I walked my daughter into surgery and waited. Three plus hours later she returns. Dr. Guiliame, a wonderful man, spoke to me about what they found. “We decompressed her skull. A piece of bone did puncture an artery in her brain. It did not bleed out until we went in for surgery, which is a very good thing. The portion of the brain that is affected is small and does not control any function that another part of the brain cannot direct in its place. In other words, barring any unforeseen complications and smooth recovery from surgery, she should be 100 percent neurologically.”

On October 22nd we came home from the hospital. So many prayers, loved ones good wishes, baskets of bananas and clean underwear for me. Dear friends who made me go and eat healthy, took care of my Chihuahua at home, paid my bills, brought me coffee, sent flowers, wrote cards, drew pictures and penned poems. Our special friend came to stay at the hospital and take us home with sweet doggies in the car for company. So many of you let me know you were there for me and told me that it was okay to lay my head on your shoulders and reach out for help, because you reminded me that I have helped so many of you and you appreciated me. Thank you. You touched my soul.

Tonight Jade went trick or treating wearing a long black wig partly because it matches her vampire costume and partly because it covers the healing 14o stitches that hold down two titanium plates that help her skull heal. I have had my prayers answered this month, above everything, I have been given the greatest gift…my daughter. And an awakening of all the loving people in my life. I love you all…enormously. Absolute Love.

My heart to yours,

Dawn

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2007 at 12:40 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.