I'm going to try and tell you about this accident that our sweet Liev had - but as I'm writing this I can't help but cry as I remember what happened and all the love and support we felt during this really scary time.
On Labor Day after we had our neighborhood pickleball tournament and after a lot of the Beutler family left from being in town for the weekend, we were home taking it easy for the afternoon. Liev and the kids were playing outside and I heard him come in from the garage crying. I looked over and noticed he had a black eye starting on his right eye. He wasn't overly upset or crying a lot so I didn't know what to think as I asked him what had happened. He told me he was jumping on the pogo stick in the garage and it slipped out from underneath him and he hit his head on the garage floor. I laid him down on the couch and talked to him a little bit while he was telling me what happened. He kept saying how much his eye hurt so we got some ice and put it on his eye to see if it could keep the swelling down. Honestly Josh and I both didn't think much of it and just figured he had a black eye and would be ok. He ended up falling asleep for about a half hour on our bed and I was happy to let him rest and see if his eye would feel better.
I went back to check on him after about 30 minutes and this is how his eye looked then. Much more swollen and purple and seemed to be getting bigger and bigger by the minute. I panicked a little bit at that point and didn't know what to do. I tried calling my dad to see if he had any answers, called Kristi to see if she could come look at him (she's a nurse at Primary Children's) and texted the pictures to Bishop Brown who is an oral surgeon in our neighborhood. It seemed like it got pretty big really fast so I wanted to make sure it was ok. Kristi and Andy came right over and she tried to look in his eye just to make sure that the eye was ok and moving around. He was able to move it around and she said the eye itself looked ok. We didn't know whether we should take him in to the hospital or just wait and see if it got any worse. I think we still were thinking its just a black eye and he should be ok. Bishop Brown texted me back about a half hour after though and said that this is what's called "Raccoon Eye" and sometimes is indicative of a skull fracture. He called me and we chatted about what had happened and he asked if Liev had lost consciousness or was acting lethargic or loopy at all. As far as we could tell, he was completely fine mentally. Bishop told us to keep a close eye on him but that he would be inclined to have us take him in the emergency room to be checked. After chatting with him I told Josh that I thought we should probably go in and get him looked at.
We got to the emergency room and the eye seemed to continue to get bigger and bigger. Liev saw his eye for the first time after the accident and was really upset about how it looked. He kept saying "I'm so ugly!" Poor sweet boy. The ER doctor ordered a CT scan for us and the images were sent to Primary Children's to be reviewed.
Within 5 minutes the doctor was back in our room with the results. He told us Liev has a skull fracture and bleeding on the brain. I think my heart almost stopped when I heard those words come out of his mouth. It's a mother's worst nightmare to hear that about your child. I couldn't control my emotions and just broke down. Liev cried too because he could tell that something big was happening and he was scared. The doctor told us that the ambulance was ready and waiting to take us to Primary Children's where he would be admitted to the trauma unit and then placed in the ICU. I was terrified about what was ahead for Liev and hoping and praying that he would just be ok.
Liev did great on the ambulance ride up. They were monitoring him pretty closely and asking him lots of questions to make sure his memory and brain activity was still ok. I sat on that ambulance and didn't know what to think. I texted this out to Melissa, Shelley and Stephanie as I sat there...
I didn't know what to do except just pray and hope that he would be ok.
We got to Primary's and they wheeled Liev into the Trauma Room. I was stopped outside the door by a social worker who wanted to give me some information and what was going to happen. She told me she wanted to prepare me for what was going to happen in the room and that there would be a whole roomful of doctors and residents who would be looking at and taking care of Liev. She asked how I was doing and then let me just cry on her shoulder for a few minutes before we went inside. I was so grateful for her and the time she spent with me. We got into the trauma room and she was right - there were at least 20 doctors and team members in there and they were all huddled around tiny Liev on the big hospital bed. They had cut off his clothes so that they would be able to see if there were any other areas that were hurt. He continued to answer all the questions they had for him and he was so alert and awake and did not have one bit of problems talking to and answering them. I think overall they were impressed with is brain activity after such a traumatic event. One by one the doctors and residents left the room as they checked off the things that they needed. We saw the plastic surgeon, the radiologist, the rehabilitation doctor, the trauma team, the ophthalmologist and finally the neurosurgeon came and spent some time with me and talked to me about what was happening. It was a whirlwind of doctors and information. The good news about it all was that Liev was able to avoid going to the ICU because he showed no signs of memory loss or loss of brain activity. They told us they would be admitting us to the neuro truama unit instead. After a crazy few hours, I felt like that was finally some good news. We did spend about an hour with the ophthalmologist that night who wanted to do a full eye exam on Liev. It was difficult with the amount of swelling around his eye but she had me help hold the eye open while she looked and had him do a few exercises. She said that the eye had slightly higher pressure than normal and the upward movement was limited but she said that they would continue to monitor him throughout the next couple days to see what improvements he would make.
We finally were admitted to our room around 1:00 am and Liev was happy to get some sleep. In the NTU they did have to do neuro checks on him every 2 hours so he didn't get a lot of sleep at a time, but was able to rest and that was good.
After that first night I started texting out updates to the family. It was my way of keeping everyone informed and also keeping track of which doctors said what. I figure that's as good of a synopsis I can give so I'll include my texts from the two days we spent in the hospital...
September 4th 6:31 am
We are so grateful to all of you for your fasting and prayers. Here is a short update on what we know. Last night when we got up here they took us to the trauma room and had probably every sort of doctor in there with us. They did a full assessment of everything. The neurosurgeon spent a lot of time explaining what was going on. He said there was a good size bleed in the frontal lobe just above the right eye. He didn’t know if it would get bigger so I’m sure we will get another scan today to compare. He gave him an anti seizure medication because that’s what he is most at risk for with a bleed that size. He did say the bleed is in a part of his brain that is actually the best place to have one if you're going to. Mostly controlling personality traits instead of walking/talking functions. The ophthalmologist from Moran came and spent almost an hour checking his right eye for anything that may be damaged. She said he has some slight limits to looking up and down and the pressure is higher in that eye. But she thinks a lot of it is to do with the swelling and hopefully not any permanent damage. The fracture in the skull goes right into the top of that eye socket so that’s where most of the damage is. They put us in the neuro trauma unit instead of the ICU though because liev doesn’t show any signs of memory loss or decrease in function. So that’s a really positive thing. I stayed up here with him last night and they come in every 2 hours to do tests on him and said the neuro team would be on this morning sometime to give us an update. Wow what a night. We really appreciate all the prayers. He is doing great considering all things. Love you all
September 4th 11:40 am
Had a ct scan this morning and the neurosurgeon said the bleed spot hasn’t gotten any bigger. The blood will eventually just get absorbed back into the body. So they were encouraged by that. The ophthalmologist came back and dilated his eyes and did another eye exam. He is still having a hard time looking up and the pressure is still high in the right eye but he thinks it’s mostly because of all the swelling. The trauma team came and had him do a bunch of reflex and muscle exercises to make sure his brain is still functioning in all the right ways. We are waiting for the rehab team to come take a look and then the neuro team said they’d be back in. He has been pretty tired today and finally told the nurse this morning that he “just needs a break” 😊 He has neuro checks every two hours even through the night so he hasn’t gotten a lot of sleep. He’s doing great though and discovered that he can choose from any x box game and have all the Gatorade and slushees he wants. So he’s surviving :)
September 4th 6:04 pm
Another update on liev. We found out that the trauma team is running the show around here and are the ones in charge of deciding when liev is ready to go home. They have orders for the ophthalmologist, the neurologists, the rehab specialists, speech therapists and the plastic surgeons to come and make assessments. So far we have seen everyone today except the speech therapist. The ophthalmologist came back today and his eye pressure is still high and the movement is not quite where they want it so they are requesting to have it re-evaluated in the morning. The speech therapist said they have a 30-45 minute session they need to have with liev tomorrow as well. So we are here for the night and into tomorrow for sure and then hopefully we have seen enough progress that they will let us go home. We got a lot of good information from the rehab specialist about how his recovery is going to look. He said that he has a mild traumatic brain injury and that he needs to sleep a lot and that his brain really needs to rest. He said for the next couple weeks he should probably either stay home from school or have limited hours there. The hardest part is that he told us "two feet on the ground for the next 3 months" should be the rule that we live by. So we will have to see how that goes with three younger brothers that love to wrestle :) But he said that will be the biggest help in recovery is to just rest and give his brain some time to heal. Puzzles, games and coloring are really good things for him to do. Overall he is doing great and we just had about two hours of uninterrupted time that we were all able to sleep. We love you and thank you for all the support. He is doing so well considering all that has happened.
September 5th 8:40 am
Liev is making such good progress! They switched his neuro checks to every 4 hours instead of 2 hours so he was able to get some good stretches of sleep last night. He woke up and went to the bathroom all on his own this morning and then said "what's for breakfast? I'm so hungry" 😋 That is such a good sign because yesterday he didn't feel like eating a thing. The ophthalmologist came in right at 7 and did another eye pressure and movement test. Not much has changed since yesterday but he said it's not anything he feels like won't improve as the swelling goes down. He wants to see us in the clinic in a couple weeks for a follow up and then we'll go from there. The trauma team came in right after that and said they were just waiting on his results and then the results from the speech therapist who will also be here shortly. Looks like we are headed home early this afternoon! I think the swelling has gone down significantly even since last night and liev showed me how he can even open his right eye a tiny crack without using his hands. Big improvements! The trauma lead gave us a prescription for the anti seizure medication that he will continue to take for the next 7 days. She also reminded us of the rehab guidelines of keeping both feet on the floor for the next few months and liev said "oh since I can't ride my bike to school I'll just ride my scooter" 😕 This is going to be an adjustment for this active, rowdy boy we have. But we are most grateful for the amazing care we've received here. The nurses, doctors and staff have been so informative and helpful and positive and we just really feel so blessed to be here. I am overwhelmed with gratitude for everyone's love, prayers, fasting and thoughts. We have felt it. We are on a good road to recovery and we are excited that Home is in sight :)
September 5th 12:12 pm
A selfie and a slushy for the road! We're on our way home :)
I cannot help but feel so blessed for the outcome that we had. After such a scary accident to find out that he is going to be ok is just an answer to so many prayers that have been said in his behalf. I am overwhelmed with the love and support and help that we have received the last few days. And grateful to a Heavenly Father who is watching out for us. Mr. Liev has some recovery ahead of him, but he's going to be ok.
