~High Adventure Gone Wrong~ July 18,2015

It's never a phone call you want to get.... "I was in a bad accident on a 4-wheeler, the driver is being life flighted. They wanted to take me too but their was a weight limit of 300 pounds. I think I broke my arm and my leg."

 My mind was trying to process one thing at a time.....Travis was in a 4 wheeler accident....He wasn't driving.... He is badly hurt.....But he is able to talk to me....But he was hurt bad enough they wanted to life flight him....The driver was life flighted..... 

All this information only opened up that many more questions..... Will he be able to walk?... Will he have surgery's?.... Will he be in the hospital for a while?... Do I need to call his boss?.... If he wasn't driving who was?.... How bad is the driver hurt?... What are his injuries?.... Will he be okay?.... 

And then the realization that their accident should have probably killed both of them and yet so far they are both stable! Travis was up in Clayton, ID on the Young Mens High Adventure trip, he was the YM President at the time. On their last day right before they came home they went on a 4-wheeler ride. (Apparently there are church policies against this, and no body knew that because he even had permission from the bishop and stake president...OOPS) 

On this 4-wheeler ride they let the boys drive the machines for a little bit on a wide logging road. The driver was coming up on a corner, and instead of hitting the brake, he slammed on the gas and they went over a 20-30 foot cliff and landing in rocks and fallen logs and stumps. How they both made it through I will never know. I just thank Heavenly Father that they were both alive! 

The driver broke his pelvis in 3 spots but he healed very quickly and was back to normal by the time school started! Travis ended up with several injuries. He broke is radial head in his left elbow in 5 places. It was broken in so many places that they couldn't do surgery to plate it back together. They let it heal broken and then he did several physical therapy sessions. 

He also received a huge wound on his left leg that we had to pack and keep clean. He ended up doing 7 weeks of wound care treatments at the wound care clinic in Meridian. All the while he was out of work. It was  nice to be able to spend all those weeks with him at home, I just wish it was for different reasons! 

He had bruising all the way from his knee to his groin. 

There was a tunnel from the dark spot on the bottom left all the
way across to the dark spot on the top right. 

We nick-named this bad boy his second knee!

Last but certainly not least, Travis broke a piece of bone off in his left knee, off the underside of his knee cap. After his wound was healed and he finished his hunting season, they surgically went in to fix his knee and clean it up in there. Surgery was on December 1, 2015. Surgery went well but he had a very hard and painful surgery. He was having significant bleeding still 3 weeks later. They had even gone in with a big needle and drained 150cc of blood the first time and about 70cc the second time but it still wasn't better. They decided to go back in and clean it out and stop the bleeders. They did that on December 29,2015. He has had significant improvement all the way around since then.

During those first 7 weeks when Travis was home we were going to the wound care clinic 2-3 times a week. Then he had 2 physical therapy appointments per week. 2 different surgeon appointments a week, one for his elbow and one for his leg. x-rays every week for the first 3 weeks and then x-rays every other week the remaining 4 weeks. Appointment with NORCO which always seem to take hours to get supply's for his leg wound, or crutches, or arm sling it seemed like there was always something else we needed to go get. There were a few weeks were we would end up going to the Dr. 12 times in one week! It seemed like it would never end. 

After almost 6 months, we finally feel like the medical will stop and life may get back to normal! If there is one thing that I have learned from all of this, it's how grateful I am for my husband and his kind heart and the love he shows me, for amazing family that loves and supports us, and amazing friends who have helped us during this trial in our lives. We couldn't have done it without you all!