January 21st 2018, Eugene had been in the hospital now for hours and was in a medically induced coma. I had been awake for over 24 hours and sat silently in a chair next to Eugene’s cold, swollen, and lifeless body. So many thoughts raced through my mind, I truly was lost as to what to do. Around 6 or 7 am I updated our families and tried to get some sleep, though that didn’t really happen.
Doctors and nurses were continually coming in and out of the room. We got visits from wound care, urologists, nephrologist, infectious disease, surgeons, and so many more. This would become an everyday occurrence. I remember listening so intently, I made sure to know every medicine, every bandage, every single trauma that Eugene was going through. I think this was my way of coping with everything. When I arrived at the hospital that morning, I was initially told Eugene would be in the medically induced coma for a few days. It was decided only a few hours later, after some tests and seeing that he was stabilizing, they would slowly take him off the medicine keeping him in that state. After he was awake and stable they would see if he could breathe on his own. They came in every 10 minutes or so to check his vitals.
When Eugene first woke up he would be awake for 30 seconds to a minute and then be back asleep for a long while. He would wake and open his eyes wider then you could even imagine possible. It was really hard to see him like that. He would look around the room so confused and in pain and quickly doze right back to sleep. One second my heart was so full to see him alive but at the same time ached so bad to know all that he was going through. He was just so lost and confused. After a few hours of going through the waking then falling asleep he started making this motion with his fingers when he would wake. He put two of his fingers against his thumb and slowly lifted up and down with his eyes wide open before ultimately tiring himself out and falling back asleep. I could tell he wanted something but I couldn’t figure it out. It was truly heartbreaking sitting there knowing he wanted something and not being able to help.
Finally a bit later his nurse came in to check on us, I told her what he was doing and she came back with a clipboard, pen, and paper and said “I think he may want to write”. Eugene was intubated so he couldn’t talk at all. He had pretty extensive road rash on the back of both arms and was still in a neck brace so he couldn’t lift his arms. When he woke up the next time I asked him if he wanted to write and he blinked a few times which I understood meant yes. I positioned the clipboard on the bed resting against his body and put the pen in his hand and put it on the paper. I had to help him stay on the clipboard and move it as he wrote.
The first thing he wrote was “I love you Boo Boo” as a tear streamed down his face, he made the movement with his hand again that he wanted to write more. Next was “how did you get here so fast” he had no idea how long it had been since he had been in the coma since his surgery. Next he asked what happened, what is in his mouth/throat, and that he was afraid to breathe. There was a lot of explaining to him in between him being awake and asleep. Later that night, they were able to extubate him and put him on oxygen. He still was pretty out of it and only woke up for a minute or so at a time before falling asleep for long periods of time. I remember the way it felt when Eugene wrote those first few words. Everything that had happened, all the pain and trauma he was going through, and his first words he communicated was his love for me. This is something I will always remember, thinking of it now makes me tear up again, my sweet hubby...
The next morning they were able to get x-rays of his back, neck, and right knee. They were able to see that there were no broken bones! Eugene was able to get the neck brace removed at that point. Once they were able to take off the neck brace the nurses were cleared to clean and switch his bandages on his road rash and get him new sheets. This was a very painful process for Eugene and extremely hard to watch, but I held his hand and massaged his head the whole time. Eugene always has loved a good head rub! In order to switch out the sheets and bandages they had to rotate Eugene from one side to another changing out bandages and moving everything under him. They would rotate him onto his right side first since that was the less sensitive side. They would then quickly pull up the pads that were underneath him to soak up the blood and discharge from his wounds, change out the bandages, and put clean ones down. In order to get clean sheets and the pads underneath him they would put them on the side he was not on and roll the rest. Eugene would then have to roll onto his left side, which was his really badly injured side. They would then reach under him to grab the rolled up sheet and pad and pull it out to cover the rest of the bed. We would prep for these changes with pain medicine a half hour before, and Eugene would still be in terrible pain for a good hour or so afterward. It took at least two nurses to help with this and I was there as well holding his hand and sometimes helping to hold his body up on his side. We had to do this daily.
At this time Eugene had a catheter in and had been having a heavy amount of blood in his urine, the doctors gave him some medicine to try and help lower his potassium levels and it helped to lower the amount of blood in his urine as well which was great. Eugene seemed to be progressing unbelievably quickly and the nurses said we may even make it out of the ICU in a day or two. I felt very positive at this time, he had been woken up from a coma way before initially expected and then things all seemed to be progressing quickly. Unfortunately that would not stay the case for long.
Two days later and I still had not left the hospital. Friends from church brought by bags full of food, snacks, magazines, crosswords, and so much more. Jake and Darby stopped by with a pillow, blankets and Darby literally gave me the sweater she was wearing. To say we have great friends and support would be a huge understatement. Luckily I still had some clothes in my suitcase that were unworn so I was good there too. I was supposed to be flying to Idaho for another work trip and a baby shower that my sweet girlfriend Brittany was throwing me. Luckily a great co-worker dropped everything and jumped on a plane to do my training events for me and Brittany reached out to all our friends and let them know what was going on. We had so many people willing and ready to help us at the drop of a hat, it made a huge difference.
At this point, I had still barely slept and probably wasn’t drinking enough. My stomach started to feel really tight and I was having some pain. My whole body felt weak and I realized I couldn’t remember the last time I felt the baby. After a phone call to my doctor it was decided it would be best if I went to the emergency room. They wanted me to go to the hospital that they are connected to but it was about 45 minutes away and there was no way I was leaving Eugene for that long. I went down to the emergency room at the hospital we were at and checked myself in. I think this was one of the first times I cried since being at the hospital, they brought me back pretty quickly. They put me on IV fluids and had me give a urine sample before hooking me up to the monitors for contractions. I did have a few small ones, but nothing too serious. I had a UTI and was a bit dehydrated but other than that ok. They couldn’t get me released quick enough. I just wanted to get back to Eugene as soon as I found out Ryder was ok.
Eugene really did not like to be left alone, he wouldn’t let anyone do anything when I wasn’t in the room. I got up to go to the restroom often being big and pregnant and if I wasn’t in the room he had them wait until I got back. That night, Eugene’s fever started to rise pretty quickly and his white blood count started to go up as well. They monitored his fever and were able to get it down a bit. The next morning they were able to get him on some antibiotics that wouldn’t affect his kidneys and liver. They found that he had a UTI. We were both on antibiotics for a UTI. On the 23rd he received his first “bed bath” They have caps that look like a shower cap and they bring them in warm. The cap is wet with “shampoo” in it. The nurse let me do this part and I massaged Eugene’s scalp really well. He LOVED it! Eugene showers pretty often, sometimes a few times a day between workouts and other activities he’s involved in, so he really appreciated getting cleaned up. He still had dirt and debris that we were able to clean off. He was exhausted after and slept for hours.
While Eugene slept, Jake came to the hospital and I went home really quickly. I showered, grabbed some clothes, and headed back to the hospital. I couldn’t get back soon enough. I felt anxious the whole time I was gone, I cried for a bit while i drove home, though most of the time I just drove in silence. Showers are one of my favorite ways to de-stress and relax, it was so nice taking a shower. When I got out it took me awhile to get to figure out what to wear and what to pack, I felt myself getting really anxious. I had almost no comfortable maternity clothes, I had just bought some but they were all business style. Neighbors and friends from church over the next week or so donated and let me borrow maternity clothes and it was such a huge blessing. When I got back to the hospital, Eugene was still asleep, Jake kept me company for a bit before heading home.
Later that afternoon, a tech came and did chest x-rays followed by a sonogram to check on liver and kidneys. After that the nephrologist came in to talk with us and get him started on Dialysis. At this point based off of Eugene’s blood work and lack of Urine he was in full renal failure. They decided that they needed to do a svc catheter in his neck. This would allow them to do dialysis and this form of catheter could stay in for a prolonged amount of time. Dialysis didn’t go so well, the line was “spasming”, basically the flow in and out would stop go, stop go. The dialysis nurse was awesome, she stayed by the machine the whole time resetting it every time it would go off to try and make sure we could get a handle on Eugene’s potassium level (it was really high). The nurse let us know that this is a pretty common problem with new lines and that there was a big chance that it would just work the next day, we were very hopeful as it was really important that he was able to have successful dialysis treatments. Once the treatment was done he got a popsicle and was sent down for an MRI. For the MRI they had to move him from his bed to the metal table, this caused him to be in a lot of pain. This was the first of many days/nights that he was moaning in pain in his sleep. If you’ve never experienced someone you love doing this, let me tell you, it is one of the absolute most heartbreaking sounds to have to listen to, especially when it’s your big strong hubby!
January 24th, we’ve been in the hospital for 4 days now. Eugene was so swollen from being in full renal failure, dialysis not working, and being pumped full of fluids via IV his hands and arms looked like they belonged to someone who weighed hundreds of pounds more than he did. He hadn’t peed in days. His body wasn’t processing out any of its waste. His potassium levels were climbing and he seemed to progressively be getting worse. The catheter they put in his neck was not working, it kept clotting so badly that at one point they pulled a clot out of the line that was the biggest clot the nurse had ever seen. It was about the size of a new pencil in length and as thick as an IV. Eugene’s blood was thick and clotted way to fast it was like sludge. After talking with his Nephrologist, urologist, surgeon, and dialysis nurse they decided to remove the svc catheter line and put in a permacath in his chest.
In order to get the permacath put into Eugene’s chest he had to have a surgeon do the procedure. This procedure had to be done in a sterile environment so I was not allowed in the room. The surgeon first removed the catheter from his neck, stitched him closed and then placed the new permacath in his chest. This was one of the procedures that Eugene thought was cool because they placed a device on his chest that showed his veins going to his heart. The new catheter that they put in was around 8 cm long and was in a vein linked directly to Eugene’s heart! They were able to get this new line put in pretty quickly and thankfully it didn’t cause Eugene to be in any extra pain. Eugene was really out of it still throughout this time, he was awake for just a few minutes at a time. It got worse when they started Dialysis.
Eugene’s family wanted to talk to him, they wanted so badly to come and be in Texas with us. It was really hard on them and me because I had to tell them no. I knew Eugene wouldn’t want them there right away. There was nothing that them being there would do other than cause extra stress. I know to some this probably sounds so terrible, but the second Eugene was out of the coma and able to speak I asked him and he confirmed what I thought he would say. I made sure to send updates often throughout the day via text to both our families. I sent them to specific family members and asked them to share with others. My phone was consistently vibrating with new texts and phone calls and there were so many things going on. I just didn’t respond to messages and I rarely ever picked up phone calls. Actually saying things out loud seemed so much harder then typing one text that I could copy and paste to send as an update.
Eugene’s mom struggles with mental health issues that unfortunately she does not get treatment for. Throughout the years her illness has seemed to have gotten progressively worse. She had a really, really hard time dealing with the accident from afar. Which as a mother now, I understand so much more than I did at that time. Still, I believe we made the right decision by asking family to wait to come until we figured things out and the dust settled a bit more. What made the situation harder is his mother began to question me, question the accident, and how it happened. She would say over and over, “Eugene is so safe on bikes, there’s no way he just crashed”. I can’t count the amount of times I went over the story of the accident with her. She didn’t understand medically what was going on even though I tried my hardest to explain things in the simplest form possible. I had not disclosed any information as to what hospital we were in at this time, but somehow his mom was on the phone with one of our nurses questioning everything. I could hear her trying so hard to explain things, I could hear the frustration in her voice. I talked to her after and she said that it was fine, that his mom had shared some bible verses with her to tell him, she kept sending me big long texts with messages from a scripture study book and gospel music to play him. It was at this point that I had to have added to Eugene’s file that no medical information was to be given over the phone to anyone, and that they could refer any phone calls over to me. The nurses didn’t have time to sit on the phone for over thirty minutes! I called her and let her know that I had made these changes, that I would continue to update her, and that every minute she kept the nurse on the phone like that it took her away from Eugene’s care. Eugene was in need of such critical care at that time he had his own personal nurse. She seemed to understand and we left the phone call on what I thought were great terms.
We were now into the end of day 4, it felt like so much time had gone by, Eugene had been through so much these past few days, yet we had no idea the ride he was in for. He was going through so much, but still managed to be as sweet as ever. I got up to go to the restroom often. Each time I did I would ask him if he needed anything. Often his response would be “just a kiss.” seriously so sweet. One thing we always can count on is each other.
