Tuesday

Day seven. One week since the accident. I look back I realize I have truly witnessed a miracle. So many simply incredible things have happened.

That he stayed conscious through the injury and afterward. So little actual brain injury occurred, and it didn't increase the next day though the doctors thought it would.

That the surgeons were able to so skillfully put his head back together. What the neuro-surgeons did is simply mind-boggling, and that the plastic surgeons were able to close up the side where a large area of the scalp had seemed to be gone.

That he has had little of the side effects they thought he would. They told me with a head injury like this he would be throwing up for weeks. He threw-up many times after the accident and before the surgery, but hasn't throw up since. Also they told me that he would be dizzy for a while, yet he only said he was dizzy once.

That he has had so very little pain. After the accident, he said his head didn't hurt. After surgery, still no pain. The doctors/nurses said it was pretty standard that he would have a headache for two months, yet he has never had much of a headache at all. During this whole thing, the only pain medication he was given that I'm aware of is a dose of Morphine before surgery (but mostly because he was getting so irritated about the neck brace and couldn't relax), and three doses of Tylenol while in the hospital. He has had no pain or medicine since we have been home (though he has had a lot of itching!).

That he is healing so very quickly. Each day he improves. Today he was better than yesterday.

I took these photos of him this evening:

He was chewing gum and I told him I didn't want to see the gum in the picture so he kept putting his mouth funny and not smiling.

But I caught this one of him smiling in the car:
He's happy. He's healing. We are so blessed.

I feel so grateful to our Heavenly Father, for the power of the Priesthood, and for the power of faith and prayers. I feel absolutely indebted to all of our many many family members and friends who have fasted and prayed and pleaded with our Heavenly Father to open the windows of heaven and shower down the blessings of health and healing on my son and our family. Indeed these prayers have been heard.

We have been surrounded with love from our family, friends and neighbors. We've been given so many cards, meals, gifts, phone calls, visits -- loving service from some of these very people whose prayers have already blessed us in a way that I don't know how to ever repay, or express enough thanks for my gratitude.