A Letter From Aubrey

Wednesday 1 April 2009


Dear Friends,

Some of you already know this, so forgive the repetition, but here is his condition. Daniel was in a terrible motorcycle accident that has changed our lives, for the moment. Everything is in the "wait and see" status. His liver has the most damage and continues to bleed, but less and less. One of his kidneys has a couple of lacerations but will probably heal without surgery. His spleen may have to come out. One of his lungs is severely bruised and both lungs have collected fluid and leaked air into the chest cavity. He has a lot of blood in his stomach, which with the bruised lung has placed undue pressure on his diaphragm which necessitated a respirator. His blood pressure has been too low to operate or give him adequate pain meds or sedation. He has 2 broken ribs and several breaks in his pelvis...but, no brain damage. He is strapped to his bed, has a neck brace, even though they don't think he has any spinal damage. He suffered additional injury to his neck, but nothing he cannot recover from. They are considering placing an umbrella type filter below his heart to stop any clots from entering the heart. Even though the trauma doctors didn't want to release him for an operation, they had to allow a lung drainage tube to be placed, so the orthopedic doctors went in and wired his elbow together and cleaned all of his broken bones to risk likely infection. They will put things back together in a couple of days. He is a trooper and has not complained at all, and has been completely cooperative, patient, and calm...even, when they are cleaning out his respirator tubes and suctioning his throat. Even though his eyes are closed, he constantly communicates by writing in my hand. He spells everything out and I repeat the letters to him to make certain I understand. He wants me to tell him stories and read to him, so I do...all night long. He wanted to know all of the details of his accident and all of the damage and prognosis, since he has almost completed his EMT certification. He writes to the nurses and tells them, "It's cool to hear the consulting between the doctors and nurses, and that the girl nurses are smarter than the boy nurses"...they loved that! I recalled to him how the police re-created and determined the details of the accident and he told me that their assessment was close in accuracy and he would give me the full details when he could speak. Even though they have given him some type of amnesia drug, he continues to remember every detail of every conversation, etc. He is in a lot of pain and simply needs your prayers and faith. I feel completely calm and reassured that all will be well, eventually.

All of our phones have rung constantly and we either haven't been able to return calls or aren't quite ready to talk about everything. We are still processing all of this and then there are the emotional moments, and constant doctor visits that require all of our attention and energy. We feel your love and support immensely and become emotional as we listen to your kind messages. There really isn't anything that anyone can do right now, but we know well that we could call on any of you at any time to help us.

Please forward this information to anyone you feel might want to know.

We dearly love and appreciate each of you.

Aubrey and Mendy