If you are visiting this post, and it's your first time reading about Chase's accident, you are on THE LAST POST of a series of posts telling the story of Chase's injury.
Wednesday November 28th
I packed everything up from our room in the West Wing, and followed the doctors and nurses to the elevator. They were quickly pushing Chase's HUGE hospital bed down the long hallway into the elevator and then into his I.C.U. room while nurses were checking his vitals, hooking him back up to I.V.'s and making sure he would be ready to go as soon as we got down there. Chase was writhing in excruciating pain, and was in and out of consciousness. The nurses were asking him questions and he couldn't respond to them. This felt eerily like the first night he got injured when we took a trip to urgent care, and his health declined at a rapid pace. It was like it was happening all over again.
I had my emergency root canal appointment scheduled for 11:30 that morning! At this point, my tooth pain was excruciating and radiating up into my eye. I had gotten about 12 hours of sleep in combination of the last three night because of baby, helping Chase and my extreme tooth pain and I was running on fumes. It kind of felt like everything was crashing down around me. Just when I thought we were out of the woods we were sucked back into the scene from Snow White, where the trees are trying to kill her (or so she thinks.)
The doctors ended up scheduling Chase's surgery for 1:00 P.M. that day. Knowing my dentist appointment was at 11:30, I would be cutting it close, but I couldn't be any help to Chase if I was in this much pain from my tooth. My emotional state was wrecked, my mental state wasn't that good at this point, and my physical state, with this tooth pain, was deteriorating by the minute. I called my sister to pick me up and take me, because I was delirious and knew that I shouldn't be driving a car.
Before I left, the nurse came in with a bunch of paperwork I had to sign because Chase was unable to. I honestly couldn't tell you what any of it said, because I was so exhausted and out of it, but the nurse read through all of it with me, and I know there were some pretty serious pieces of paper that I had to sign in there that had to do with Chase and his life and what would happen if the surgery didn't go well. It was all such a blur.
The neurosurgeon also came in to explain the details of the operation they would be performing on Chase. They would make a 3 inch incision in his head, cut away his skull, and then evacuate the blood from the hematoma site. He explained that, if all went well, he would come away with a scar, a steel plate in his head, and a cool story to tell! I have linked a video of a similar procedure here, but WARNING : IT IS GRAPHIC. This is a more extreme case than Chase's but just so you get a general idea of how the procedure was performed.
At 11:00, my sister came to pick me up and take me to my dental appointment. I told a sleepy, medication drunk Chase that I would be back soon to which he promptly responded, " Ugh Kayla, please hurry. I can't do this without you." I walked to the elevator trying to hold it together, but that comment broke me. I needed to make this appointment as quick as I could, so I could get back to him. I stepped out of the doors of the hospital and I got in my sister's car, and drove to the appointment.
I checked in, and they brought me back immediately. I had called ahead of time to let the dentist know our situation, and he was more than willing to make my root canal as FAST as possible. They brought me back to my room, which overlooked mission valley and the 8 freeway. Sitting there in the gray, leather dentist's chair, looking out at the view of mission valley, with all of the cars whooshing by on the freeway, I thought to myself, "Life is just moving on. Look at all these people driving by on the freeway, living their own lives, doing what they need to do. They are probably going Christmas shopping, or to soccer practice, or coming home from work, or school. It's just a normal day for them. Don't they know what is happening to my husband right now?" And that was just it, they didn't know. No one did but my family, his family some friends and me. Everyone else in the world was going on about their daily lives and this realization brought me back to a place of center that I had been missing. It was an odd, sort of peaceful experience. Though I was experiencing constant chaos and noise in my own life, once I left the hospital, I realized that life was SO MUCH BIGGER than that moment. There are other people experiencing other things, and just because this felt like it was ALL ENCOMPASSING and taking over my life, it really was just a small blimp in our timeline. I felt like, honestly, God was speaking to me and saying, "Yes there is chaos and it all seems tough right now, but it's going to be okay." Taking myself out of the whirlwind of what was happening, and just giving myself a second to breathe helped me get myself back into the state of mind that I needed. I truly believe that, even though it was a complete and total nuisance at the time, I needed this root canal to take my mind off of the chaos, even just for a moment, and to realign my emotions and mental state (and fix my tooth!) so I could push through what we were about to endure as a family.
When the dentist numbed my mouth, and got ready to start on my root canal, the pain finally subsided and I was able to actually sleep well for the first time in three days. I slept through the entire root canal and, when I woke up, he told me he was able to fix everything he could today, and put on a cap to be replaced by my new "tooth" a couple days later.
It was 12:45 when I got done and back out to Morgan in the waiting room. We raced back to the hospital, knowing that Chase's surgery was scheduled for 1:00 and I got there just in time for him to be taken back for surgery. I kissed him on his forehead, told him everything was going to be okay, and they wheeled him back through the double doors for pre-op. Unlike before I left the hospital, I had a sense of calm come over me. I could feel it in my heart that he was going to come out of this better than before.
Chase's Mom and Dad and my family all came to the hospital to wait with me for his surgery. We sat in a little surgery waiting room, off the right side of the regular waiting room, all together. There were a couple chairs, and a little couch along the walls and some magazines on an end table in the corner. Other than that, the room was kind of bare, but we all fit in it, just a little snug.
I kept walking out to the main waiting room to check the T.V. for his name to pop up. This would let us know his status during surgery, and when he was in recovery. After checking 3 or 4 times in ten minutes, his name finally popped up. C.Tucker - in surgery. I prayed that God would watch over Chase, just like I have so many times before. I knew he would answer this prayer.
About an hour later, the T.V. screen read C. Tucker - in recovery. At the same time I read this on the T.V. the neurosurgeon came out of the double doors to find us. He sat us down in the little waiting room, and told us that everything went exactly as planned. He explained that he blood had created SO MUCH pressure in his head, that when they went to evacuate it, and drilled the hole in his head, the blood shot out 6 feet across the room! If you could imagine that much pressure on your brain, you can understand why he was in so much pain! The doctor explained to us that, as soon as the blood was evacuated, everything in Chase's body started working normally again. His mid line shift disappeared and his brain popped right back into place, his heart was back to it's regular rhythms, and his pulse was back to it's normal resting rate of 55. The surgery turned out to be exactly what Chase's brain needed to become healthy again. We were all relieved to hear this news.
Chase ended up with 16 staples, a bunch of stitches, and a draining port out of the side of his head to drain any excess blood that would pool on his brain because of the surgery.
Waking up from anesthesia was a little difficult for Chase, because he couldn't remember ANYTHING from the past two days. He barley remembers his buddies coming to visit him in the hospital, so he doesn't remember having the surgery at all. This caused him to be a little belligerent when he woke up, because he thought he was hallucinating again! He kept calling out for me, asking me to wake him up, and telling me that this couldn't be real. I just kept repeating to him that he was awake, that it was real and that the surgery fixed him to be good as new. He kept trying to get up, out of bed, and pull out his I.V.'s and this went on for a couple hours until he was fully out of his anesthetic state. I blame the fact that he has red hair, so they have to use 20% more anesthetic for him to pass out, for him being in this state of insanity.
As soon as he was fully conscious and could clearly understand where he was, he was fine! Everything was checking out great and after a couple more days in the I.C.U. and hospital and one painful drainage tube extraction, we were set to go home and heal. (And pay a mound of hospital bills)
That's the end of our story ladies and gentlemen. Chase is now doing great and has recovered 100%!
Thank you so much for reading along. If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment below or email me at kaylaanntucker@gmail.com.
Until Next Time!
-Kayla
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