Wednesday update

Hello everyone,
A week ago at this time we had been up for over 24 hours and our life as well as Toni's had changed forever. All the thoughts that race through your head and the overwhelming emotions that keep hitting you wave after wave give testimony to the human spirit and its resiliency. Toni is now in a room (#359 Sacred Heart) and her surgery is tomorrow or Friday because they want the swelling in the right ankle down a bit more. It won't be later than that because now is the opportune time for best results since her bones are already trying to heal.

Today I wanted to share something the hospital brought to me yesterday and asked my permission to print it in a Trauma newsletter they published. This particular article was submitted by the ER/Trauma nurse that attended Toni once she was transported. Her name is Jackie Nichols:

"A thick skin. Tough as nails. A hard outer shell. This is how some might describe ER/Trauma nurses. It is true that, for mere self preservation, we must insulate ourselves from emotional attachments to the pain, despair, and devastation that rolls into our trauma bays. I'd like to share a time when it was not so easy to shake the effects of trauma.

It was, for this young lady, an afternoon like any other. She was on her way to the first soccer game of her senior year. What should have been the beginning of an exciting season took a tragic turn. The victim of a head on collision, she came to our trauma bay with multiple fractures. Her only plea was "please, just let me get back on the field." Her plan, she relayed to me, was to play soccer in college. In less than one hours time the excitement of her senior year, the hope of a winning season, picking out a prom dress, graduation plans and the usual activities that go along with ones senior year of high school came to a screeching halt. Not only was she physically broken, but her spirit was dealt a blow as well.

While it seemed that she would likely survive her injuries, I was struck by the intensity with which this afternoons events would effect her life. You see, I have a daughter who plans to play sports in college too. my daughter is a senior this year also. We have already been looking for potential prom dresses. For me, hearing her plans, seeing the strong body of an athlete now broken, and listening to the cries of this particular trauma patient hit too close to home for me to detach myself from it. You can believe that when I got home from work, I held my own 17 year old as long and as tightly as a teenager will let her mom hug!

After much contemplation in regards to this trauma, I have come to the conclusion that it is OK to feel the full emotion of a trauma. Empathy is to be considered a strength. We need not form a hard shell. Our response to human suffering is natural and the very thing that makes us human in return. In getting a first hand view of human tragedy we are in a fortunate place. We see daily how much we have to be thankful for and what a sin it is to take a single moment for granted."

God bless,
Scott & Laurel