Tough Day 9-23

Pretty tough day yesterday.... Rachel seems to be okay, but had to get a Neuprogen shot. That shot stimulates her bone marrow to produce more of the white blood cells that are quite low. Shot went fine... the side effect is pretty bad bone pain the next 24-48 hours, primarily in the sternum, hips and shoulders where much of your marrow is produced... 

but the additional tough part was with her brother Eric... he works for the City of Pittsburg part time while going to school. At 3pm yesterday, his boss showed up at my work to inform me that Eric had been in a work related accident. He was on a mowing tractor on a steep incline and the mower rolled downhill. Eric was able to jump off enough to keep from being crushed, but was injured. The tractor rolled to the bottom of the incline, about 80 feet and Eric fell down the hill about 50 or so. He luckily had his phone in his pocket... pushed his "send" button, which dials his last call and that happened to be his boss. EMT and Police showed up right away and he went to the hospital. He broke his left collarbone and has numerous cuts on the left side. His right leg has a deep puncture wound that can't be stitched and it has to bleed out and will heal..plus his left knee is pretty messed up. He can hardly walk on it. We will see an Orthopedic doctor on Friday or Monday.  I went over the to site of the accident last night, and I don't want to be overly dramatic here, but Eric is lucky to be alive. It is a very steep incline and he could have easily been crushed had he not jumped off in the correct direction. Normally you are supposed to wear a seat belt on those tractors, but Eric did not have his on... that is what saved him.

Eric is at home... as you can imagine... very sore....but he'll be okay in a week or so... you can't set collarbones, just immobilize them as best you can... it broke where the bone attaches to the sternum... so you can see the break push up towards his skin when he moves in the wrong way... pretty painful!  It will start to reattach within a few days.... we'll keep you posted on his progress as well.

Jan and I took the day off today... I went to the liquor store as soon as it opened this morning and purchased a fifth of vodka... we hope to be drunk by mid-afternoon.... 

Our house is a hospital ward right now... but again "this too shall pass"

Despite all of this... it really could've been a lot worse...

We know we're in your thoughts and prayers and we are very appreciative.