Even longer time and no post ….Andrew’s accident …

Wow! It’s been a long long time. And no good. A blog with no posts is exactly like a pub with no beer.

It was fairly busy back then at the end of August. We were on the path…

4 September and I resigned from my job – that was a big day.

6 September and I finally got the campervan on Trademe – that was a big step ….

6 September and we figured it’d been a while since we’d had a night in the camper, so we loaded up the fridge and headed down the coast, and set up at our favourite spot south of Brighton.  Backed up onto our headland, sea on three sides.  Took a few photos with the last of the light.  Put the kettle on. Beautiful evening, life is great.

Then the phone went and life changed…. It was my older son asking if I’d heard about the accident. My other two children were down south with the Mum and others on a tourist weekend. Seemed there’d been a road accident, and my son Andrew was not so good, with a head injury. Others were shaken up and had some injuries, but were mostly OK. There was a helicopter involved, and he was being flown up to Dunedin.

In fact he was airlifted to Invercargill Hospital, but continued to deteriorate, so was retrieved to Dunedin Hospital, arriving about 7 hours after the accident and being taken straight to the operating theatre from the helipad, at midnight. Another emergency neurosurgery operation 4 hours later stabilised him, and so began the long wait. His only real injury was his head injury, and that was not good, with major brain injury and a damaged eye. It would be 48-72 hours before he was past the danger point with brain swelling.

The skill and care of the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) staff at Dunedin Hospital is wonderful. They managed him through the worst, and eventually there was a moment when they started to plan forward 🙂 He was 12 days in ICU, although absent for 10 1/2 hours on the 10th day for a major neurosurgery and maxillo-facial surgery. They did a fabulous job, and set him up to start a recovery.

And set him up well. He hasn’t really looked back. A week in the neuro ward, and then he was sent up to the rehab ward for assessment and the anticipated long haul with rehab. Except they didn’t find a lot wrong with him. His sense of humour was very sharp, and often inappropriate, which was great to see as this was normal for him. He was very keen to get out of the place, and was allowed first visits home, then nights at his Mum’s place. Eventually they told him there was no need to keep him there, he could go home.

So now he continues his recovery from there. He’s not more than two months post accident, and doing very very well. We need to keep reminding ourselves where he has come from.

For a start we put our plans on hold, but eventually it became clear that there was no longer any need to postpone our move.  So we’ve been sorting things out, and planning again to get on the road. And somehow the blog got left, there was so much else to think about. And so much to explain….

So, this first post is a relief to get done. It’s time to get back to it.

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