Making Veterans Day Happy

Today marks the 5th Anniversary of they day that my husband got hurt at work. The day that changed our lives forever. We have come so far since that day in our lives.

Here is the story of that crazy day. (Know in advance, it is long as I remember too many details :D)

On November 11, 2004, I went off to work at 1800Contacts at 6:00am. It was my first day of official work to make extra money for the holidays; the first day out of training. I finished the day feeling like I was really going to like my job. As soon as I walked into the house at 11:00am, Michael had to run out the door to go to work.

I was playing with my 1 and 2 year old, when I got a phone call from my brother in law telling me to hurry to Mt. Timpanogas Hospital. When he told me that Michael had hurt himself with the company table saw, I couldn't control myself. I looked out the window and saw that Michael left me with the BIG diesel truck with no kid car seats. With my mom over 45 minutes away, I didn't know who I was going to get to watch my kids. I started calling everyone that I knew crying uncontrollably. After my mom finally arrived, I was on my way to the hospital.

As I walked into the E.R. I see an xray of a hand with the fingers very much destroyed. I knew at that moment that it was my husband. They took me to a room where my husband lay surrounded by his parents. He was on heavy drugs and didn't know that much was going on, yet he had a great outlook. He knew that things were going to be okay. He told me that his hand was going to be fine and not to worry about him.

They had to Lifeflight him to University Hospital, but I couldn't ride with him. I had to drive an hour to be by his side. When I finally got to the hospital, Michael was no long coherrent. He couldn't remember anything. Doctor Fryer came in to tell me his thoughts on the matter. He told me the longer they were in surgery, the better it would be. That they would give me hourly updates and that more than likely it would be between 5-7 hours of surgery on each finger. He told me that he would have to go home during the surgery to get some sleep and that another surgeon would come take his place.

As hour after hour in the waiting room passed, I grew more and more hopeful. He had been in surgery for 22 hours when the doctor came out of the room. It was the SAME doctor. He told me that he didn't feel good leaving this surgery in somebody elses hands. He had officially been at work for 53 hours as he had to work his regular shift.

He told me that Michael lost his pointer finger and that his thumb was struggling. He said that he needed to go home for 5 hours to get some sleep and he would be back to continue surgery on his thumb at that time. They didn't want people visiting Michael for very long, but they let us go see him for a short time. Michael was awake with a LEECH on his finger...yes, you heard me a LEECH (they use leeches as a heavy duty blood thinner). After everyone left the room, I wanted to talk to Michael by myself. He broke down and started to cry that he had lost a finger. He was devistated. I assured him that everything would be okay.

I left the hospital to take my kids to another location and to hurry back to the hospital to see Michael before he went back in for surgery. I returned to the hospital 3 hours later, but found that Michael was already back in surgery. Doctor Fryer got called to tell him that Michael's thumb was failing, so he rushed back to continue the surgery after 2 1/2 hours of sleep.

Five hours later, Michael was out of surgery
and put in a room that had to stay at a very high
temperature. Michael had to stay under covers
and was sweating massively. He had to have a
new leech every hour to keep the currculation
going. For one week, he stayed in that room,
with over 4 people passing out because of how
warm it was in the room. Because I had my
children, I was only able to come see Michael
between 5:00am-10:00am, then after the kids
went to bed from 8:00pm-11:00pm. Michael
only wanted me to give him sponge baths and
there was a member of his family there 24/7.
The hospital bent the rules, because they were
not able to stay in the room all the time to keep
and eye on everything.

They finally moved him to a normal temperature room, where he started to show signs of improvement. Michael and I decided that it was time for me to bring to boys to see their daddy and have them see what was going on. When I showed up at the hospital, I found Michael breathing very irratically. He was struggling to breath and was not waking up when people tried to wake him. My grandmother took the kids immediately out of the room as I continued to shake Michael trying to wake him up. He then stopped breathing all together. We started yelling for a nurse and I started screaming and crying. After what seeming like and eternity, he started to breath, he opened up his eyes and was asking where he was. He had a look in his eyes that said that he had left us and returned unexpectedly. I ran out of the room bawling hysterically and my grandma rushed the boys home so they wouldn't see any of this.

My nephew Chris had been with Michael when this event happened, and he was determined not to have this happen again. He called into work and stayed the next 3 nights at Michael's side. Michael did this same thing 3 other times before the doctors found out that he was having a reaction to the massive amount of drugs he was being given. They stopped that drug and he was a whole different person.

Two more weeks in the hospital and 5 blood transfusions later, he was allowed to come home to his family. He was not allowed to go back to work for another 5 months and was not allowed to be around the children unattended, so I had to be put on FMLA (family medical leave of absence). I was not allowed to work for 2 months. There was no money coming in, we were being helped by the church. I don't know how we made it during that time, but it was a learning experience.

Anyway, through the years Michael had to have 2 other surgeries, all falling on the 11th of some month to reconstruct. Every year on this day we have had many things go wrong, but not today.

Today I am going to try a new tradition of making plans for this day to be the best day ever. I am going to send letters with Michael, text him notes, play fun games with the kids, have them help make fun things and maybe do something else fun. If we keep the day light and cheerful, we might be able to turn the awful day around.

Thank you to everyone that helped during this hard time and continues to be a wonderful part of our lives. We are better people because of you :)