"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift, that's why we call it the present."

Monday, November 1, 2010

*Chris' Accident*

Warning:

O.K. So many of you know that Chris was in an accident. Here are some pictures, I must say that there is one that is VERY GRAPHIC so if you have a week stomach please don't continue...seriously!

Here is the Story:
October 22, 2010 Chris and I woke up at 6:00 am on Friday morning and went walking with our buddy Ken;) we got home around 7:00 am. We got some breakfast and then all of us headed to the basement where Chris has his wood shop. Chris built a table for Mom for Christmas and we were going to stain it and then work on craft blocks for the Craft Show. Most of the staining was done and I was going to finish it up while Chris worked on the blocks. The kids were getting tired of playing outside with us so I went upstairs to put Jagger to bed and put a movie on for the kids. When I went back to the basement I stopped to talk to Chris for a minute and he was planing wood on a Commercial Grade Planer when all of the sudden the piece he had going through shot right at me and his three middle fingers went down. I didn't really know what happened and neither did he in that moment he looked down and went "Oh" pretty calmly and then looked back down and went "Oh my gosh!" and bolted into the hall dancing around. At first I was like "Oh..Babe are you O.K.?" and then I saw blood flinging EVERYWHERE! He ran upstairs and I ran and got my phone. When I got upstairs Chris was cussing at himself at what a stupid thing he had done. (He has been in construction his whole life and has NEVER had an accident) When I looked into the sink I just saw blood draining out of his hand and skin hanging 2-3 inches past his fingers. I was totally panicking. I tried calling a couple of neighbors to see if they could watch the kids so I could take Chris to the Hospital and nobody answered. So I hurried and got the kids ready to get in the car and thought to call my sis in law Elisha to meet me at the hospital to get the kids...Thank goodness she answered and was able to come get them. Chris was way calmer than he should have been, on the drive there he would randomly say "Gosh, I'm so stupid...what was I thinking!?" Then you would hear a little voice in the back (Hunter) say "Daddy, we do NOT say Stupid!" This went on a couple of time with different words and then we decided to play the quiet game and whoever won got a treat...hey ya gotta do what ya gotta do:) Of course I was behind the slowest cars EVER! But eventually we got there. I dropped Chris off at the ER and Elisha pulled up right behind me to get the kids.
They were able to take Chris straight back. As soon as I walked in, the Nurse got me a chair...apparently I was white as a ghost:) Things slowed down a bit from here. They gave him 6 shots in his three fingers to deaden it. It worked on one of the fingers but they had to deaden the other 2 again. The ring finger however would not deaden. When the Dr. came Chris said "Tell me the truth Doc, is it bad" He said "Yes, it's bad...I mean you still have your fingers but it's bad!" Anyway, the index finger will be just fine, it will just heal itself, the index finger needed stitches and the Middle finger needed to be seen by a hand surgeon. When the Dr. came back to stitch up his finger Chris told him that he was still having pain in that finger, I'm not sure the Dr. believed him right away until Chris convinced him to do a "Poke Test" he gets tweezers and pokes at his finger "Does this hurt?" "No" Does this hurt?" "No" and so one until he did it again and Chris' entire body jumped off the bed. I was silently crying, I have never felt so helpless in all my life. The Dr. even told him that he scared him:) Anyway so he goes and gets more deadening stuff and shot it right in the nerve that hurt so bad. Chris said that was the worse pain of any of it. It was so sad, He held my hand and had to hold a still as possible while this guy is sticking a needle in and moving it around for seriously 15 seconds...it was AWFUL. Once that was done Ken came and he and another guy gave him a blessing, It was so thoughtful of Ken to leave work to come be with us:) Thanks again Ken:)
We had an appointment with the surgeon at 1:00 so I ran home and literally got ready in 2 minutes and we hauled but over there. Ken and Mom came with us...so sweet. We saw Dr. Frazier and we scheduled surgery on his middle finger on Monday Oct. 25 @10:45. These pictures are from the surgeons office so remember what I described earlier was BEFORE they cleaned it out on 2 different occasions so it doesn't look nearly as bad....still bad just not AS bad.:)



This is the day of surgery. Chris was awesome. The Dr. came in and talked to us and told us the three options there would be and he would have to decide once he was in there.
When the surgery was done Dr. Frazier came in and the first thing he says to me is "I hope I made the right decision!" Um...OK? Anyway to put it easily the finger was worse than he anticipated but was able to pull the skin on the sides together instead of having a skin graff, which would have been another surgery. So basically he will have a skinny finger but everything should function just fine once everything is healed.
When Chris came back from surgery he was completely nuts (they put him completely out) I wrote some of the things he was saying cause I didn't want to forget:)

*He kept telling me how beautiful I was and started singing (Loudly) "She don't know she's beautiful, no she's not that kind"and so on.
*Kept asking the nurses if he was a "Champ" Later on he called me a champ
*Sang "You put the lime in the coconut"
*Kept asking if he was the nurses favorite patient (4 times)
*Made up song that went like this:
Surgery Rules...Sometimes ya drool
Sometimes ya wanna puke but ya don't cause I'm so manly
*He told me he wanted a pair of skinny jeans (He HATES skinny jeans:)
*He told me "I'm trying to be a good Daddy, I need to be more patience, I love my babies!" So sweet:)
*I asked him if he wanted some apple juice and he said "MMMM ya, I like sweet things, like you!"
*He asked if the Dr. gave him a hug (laughing) then proceed to role play himself and the Dr. This was the funniest by far!


During recovery the kids spent a lot of time watching movies with their Daddy. Hunter kept saying "I'll be here for you Daddy, every step of the way!"
We feel so blessed that it wasn't worse than it was. Everyone we would talk to said wow, you should have lost way more than that. We truly are grateful for all of the love and prayers we have felt! He has his check up on Friday and hopefully everything looks great, I'll keep you posted:)

10 comments:

Tammy K said...

Chris:

I looked through your blog and I like your shirt at your birthday party. glad your hand is okay - it looks freak'n gnarly...why did you even go to the doctor you wuss?

Love Dr. John

Chris:

Your fingers look gross :) Nice battle wound! I'm glad Jamie wrote down funny stuff you said, because that was awesome to read :)
Your kids are very cute. And we miss you all lots and lots.

Don't cut your fingers off anymore

Love Tammy

Jenna said...

Oh my gosh Jamie! Will he lose feeling in those fingers? So scary, but I love Hunter saying, "We do NOT say stupid!" Totally made me laugh :) Let us know what the doctor says!!

Charlie and JD said...

Oh...yuck!!! I feel so bad I wasn't home to help you!! Glad he is feeling better!

patty323 said...

Glad to hear that chris is doing better, so sorry that it happened, remember if you need anything at all just let me know K love ya

Janice said...

Ewwwwww! I remember taking that graphic picture and it wasn't bad til it focused in VERY clearly at the last second! As Skyla would say Gross!!! Glad it wasn't worse! Love you!

ANeibaur said...

WOW! I'm so glad that he is ok. The first thought I had was "Oh no I hope he didn't loose a finger, ore more!". That is so scary.
Looks like everything is turning out oik though, and I'm happy to hear it.
Hang in there you guys!
Oh and I have to admit Jamie you have one of the sweetest guys on the planet LOL What you posted about what he said while drugged up cracked me up tugged at my heart strings! Go Chris!

Jess Beach said...

"You put the lime in the coconut..." Hahaha. I love that I can totally picture all of that. We're glad that he wasn't more seriously hurt! He needs to heal fast so he can start walking with us again! :)

Sunshine and Lazy days said...

i am so glad that he's okay! That is such a scary thing to go through! You feel so helpless! I hope he recovers quickly!

Crazy Corinne said...

Grandma Knudsen told me about his accident! What a miracle that he wasn't injured worse!!! So glad that things went well with the surgery! We will keep Chris in our prayers for a speedy recovery. He said some funny/sweet things after surgery! Loves to you guys.

Jake and Megan said...

Yuck!