Ouch!

My step-son, Andrew was in an accident at work on Thursday, February 26th. He had his arm broken - actually more like "crushed". It was (is) pretty bad! The doctors have said that it couldn't have been any worse. Andrew is now 23 (he celebrated his birthday on March 1st in a hospital bed) and he's a airline maintenance engineer. He was working about five hours north of Prince George, it was dark and late and he was moving equipment on a snowmobile when it hit some ice and flipped. Andrew managed to jump off, but his arm was crushed. He was bleeding pretty badly and thankfully someone was standing outside the lodge where he was working and heard him screaming. There was a doctor at the lodge that managed to stop the bleeding which is a blessing. Had no-one noticed him, he probably would have bled to death. They flew him to the hospital in Prince George (a $10,000 ride - WOW).

Bruce (hubby) flew out the day after it happened. Andrew still hadn't had surgery... we're talking almost 20 hours now. He had surgery on Friday afternoon after Bruce arrived. The surgeon thought it would take 2 hours - it took 3 1/2 hours. In the end, he ended up with 22 screws in his arm - ouch!

He was released from the hospital on Tuesday and is now back home in Langley. His mom and step-dad are now with him. The doctors have told him that the pain will be unbearable. He'd been on 3 different pain medications, one through the epidural that went right to his shoulder and then morphine and some other stuff. The doctors have told Andrew that it's going to be a very tough recovery, but they are hoping, with a lot of work on Andrew's part, that he will get full range of motion back.

Nothing like getting a call from a hospital telling you your son has been in an accident. It was pretty traumatic for all of us.

One shining light is Christopher's (my 11-year old) take on the situation. The night it happened, I was downstairs booking flights and hotel for Bruce when Christopher came downstairs and said "I guess you're gonna pray for Andrew tonight?". I replied "You bet! But you can pray for him too". Christopher then said, and I love this... "I already did". It's amazing to see God working in his life... sometimes I don't think he "gets" it, but then he'll say something like this and it makes me even more proud to be his Mom!