Legend [15925]
TigerPulse: 100%
Posts: 7802
Joined: 11/15/09
|
Its a GREAT DAY brothers and sisters!
Nov 15, 2018, 1:23 PM
|
| View Original Thread |
|
I'm going to put this all out there, for me and for people who may be struggling. Its long, its from my heart, but it may be hard to read.
I'll refer to my daughter as she throughout..
My daughter is smart, funny, and a sheer delight to anyone who meets her; but she carries a weight and darkness. She has been going to therapy for years and is on meds. Her mother is an amazing stay at home mom, and I feel confident in saying that I am a loving and available dad. We spend a lot of time together and enjoy life together. Despite this, the darkness inside can overwhelm her.
For the last year, I've seen her really buy into getting better. Her response to life and adversity started to change for the better. Hardships could be learned from an even laughed at in a healthy way. She went to more than weekly therapy and willingly took her newly prescribed meds daily. Things were looking amazing.
On Tuesday, my wife arrived at school to pick her up. Sometimes she stays late to finish work and has her phone off, so 30 mins later it wasn't a red flag she hadn't come out. 60 mins later, the school had been checked an APB for missing person was filed. Her phone was still off, and that never happens. Immediately friends and their parents were called, a text chain started, fb posts made. It was now 4p, 3 hours late for pick up. The cops last had a cell tower ping from the day before, so no help there.
Friends searched our little downtown. I walked the school grounds with her assistant principal. My wife worked to go through social media history, which we allow minimal of. Finally, by 6pm, we were able to piece together a story and location where she was last seen. By this boys account, my daughter was frantic. He dropped her off by another friends house, which is on a pretty creek in a very steep and wooded area.
The cops refused to send out search and rescue for safety of their team given the darkness, cold temps (30s), and steep, brambly, rocky terrain. So 6 of us put on headlamps and fanned out methodically searching for 2 hours.
At 9p, my wife thought of another place to check. We went there, searched again, no luck. We went to grocery stores, parks, restaurants.. no luck. It is 10p, 9 hours late, cell phone off. We were tired, covered in poison oak and blackerry bush scrapes, out of ideas, sad, scared, tired, cold, hungry.. but not able to give up. We stopped at a bridge over this creek, our friends still out searching but on a bikeway/greenway. The bridge is over a steep ravine with an abrupt 40-50ft drop. We slid down the hill, my wife went right, I went left.
I stood still for a moment and listened. I heard the sound of a dolphin or manatee coming up for air (i was exhausted), and ignored it for a half second. Then I whipped my heard toward it. 15ft further down slope in the creek was my daughter, fully dressed, floating face up, in 2ft of water on the bank of the creek. I was on a 10ft boulder surrounded by blackberry below me. I didn't know what to do, so i jumped. Thank God I didn't break an ankle, but I needed to get there as I'm yelling frantically for my wife to call 911. I jump in the creek, the water probably 48-55 degrees, check her for injuries that would imply trauma or need to hold her in stable c-spine position, and then pull her out of the water. 911 is on speaker. We are ripping her wet clothes off and stipping down to give my daughter our dry clothes. 911, please hurry, just get here.
That wait for fire and ambulance may have been 4 mins or 20mins, it was a lifetime. My daughter's eyes are open and she is looking around, but she is not there. She is mumbling incoherently, foaming spit at the mouth, she has irregular but effective breathing, her skin is ice.
I hear the sirens, I climb the hill, flag down the ambulance, give them a 10 sec recap. We slide back down slope, load her onto a carrying tarp, and I grab a handle as the 3 firefighters and I carry her upslope.
More first respoders show up, she's placed on a board, and then loaded into the rig. I finally break and wail and shake. That image of my daughters white skin reflecting in the dark of the water, lifeless, but not..
My friends have showed up. They clothe me and push me into a car. My wife is in the ambulance with my daughter. In the ER she is intubated and placed on a breathing machine. She has a weak pulse, they cannot get a blood pressure, her core temp is 85 degrees, and that's after some warming. 85F.
She is CT scanned from head to pelvis, tubes and lines in, labs sent. This is a rural hospital, I am an ICU RN, and I know we are in too deep for their ability. Politely, an within 20 mins, I've asked to please request transfer to Ped ICU anywhere in Sacramento. They oblige, and it happens within an hour. UC Davis is an amazing hospital and she is transferred rhe hour ride without incident.
Over the first night, I watched her do things on a ventilator I have never seen hitting resp rate of 120 breaths per minute (12 years experience). Her pupils are expanding and constricting constantly with light shown in her eyes. She has a neuro finding called clonus. Her temp is still in the low 90-92 degrees as they try to warm her. Her heart and bp have stabilized but the signs point to severe hypoxic (no oxygen) brain injury, possibly involving the brainstem.
We pray. I ask for prayers. The staff does amazing things. Everyone is trying. The MDs are reserved in their prognosis with the very real and clinically indicated severe brain injury
We get to yest evening, 24 hours after she was found, and the resident does a neuro exam. The resident is meek and I asked if I could try.
I step in put knuckles into my daughter's sternum and push hard. I need to know what she does. Immediately, her eyes flung open and she reached with both hands to stop me. That is exactly the response I had prayed for! You don't do that with severe hypoxic brain injury.
She had some hits overnight as she not surprisingly developed a pneumonia. But this morning, my sweet girl, my life, my everything looked me in the eye. She is there. She is alive in body and mind. She is still intubated on the ventilator, but will likely be taken off today. She is nodding her head. She does not maintain eye contact for long, but she is there.
I don't know what type of damage she will sustain long term, but right now I don't care. We found our daughter in a creek 8 miles from my house, she still had life, she was rescued, she was prayed for, and she is here.
I cannot thank God or all of you enough. She is an amazing human being struggling to overcome her inner darkness.. and she will. But even as I weep recounting this story, both from fear/sadness and joy, I cannot believe that we are here. I cannot believe all the things that had to come together for this child to have another chance.
I was overwhelmed when i put my head down last night and saw all the prayers and love you all posted. I believe the prayers made a difference. I know your quick posts meant the world to me as I read through the first half last night giving a tu to each before I finally crashed into sleep. I will finish the rest.
Thank you God, thank you Tiger Family. I simply don't have the words to covey my overwhelming sense of gratitude.
Peace and love to you all.
|
|
50
