From Carrie (in her own words)
Let me begin by saying thanks to all of you for your love, prayers, and support. God has blessed me with a wonderful family, friends to die for, and a wonderful, wonderful thoughtful community that I live in. Many miracles have occurred over the past two months and I continue to make progress that has astonished all of my doctors here in Seattle. The skin graft Doctors cleaned up my ankles Monday and were impressed to the point they rolled out black velvet and took photos of my feet to share with other doctors and to use in research. I have an appointment with the eye surgeon tomorrow (Friday) and should find out when they want to do follow-up surgery. I have a meeting with the foot surgeon on Monday (who rebuilt my foot bones with cadaver bones) and hopefully he will release me to come home sometime next week. I cannot bear weight on my feet for a minimum of 3-4 months, but my dreams are to watch Bo play a baseball game, see Ty play in the Vandals spring football game, and to spend time with my daughter, son-in-law, and chase my beautiful grandchildren. I cannot wait to walk back into OES and be with my wonderful co-workers and the students I love so dearly. My words of advice to you would be never again take any of the small things in your life for granted or take another day for granted. Hug your spouse, kids, loved ones and friends, and let all your friends and loved ones know every day how much they mean to you. I am so looking forward to getting back home and look forward to seeing everyone soon. Again, words can’t express my gratitude for what everyone has done for me and my family. I love all of you, and am thankful that God has seen us through this. May God bless each and every one of you. Carrie
From Randy….
Here is a list of injuries and I will follow that up with miracles. She has had 12 surgeries and will have at least one more on her right eye.
Forehead crushed, removed and replaced with titanium – sinuses removed
Right eye socket crushed, now has three sided titanium eye socket
She needed internal stitches and 15 external stitches on the right eye and eye lid. (she can’t open the eyelid yet due to swelling, but her vision is fine in that eye).
Base of skull broken (basal skull fracture)
Lining of brain torn (had to be stitched)
Hemorrhaging in the short term memory area of the brain
Broken nose
3 fractures on right cheek and right jaw fracture. Titanium right cheek area and in front of ear area is titanium.
Muscle separated from right jaw
She bled out of both ears
(all of this should have caused brain damage but she is perfectly fine)
Bruised lungs
Fractured C7 on neck
Fractured L4 on back
Both heal bones crushed like croutons
Both talus crushed (this is the bone in front of the heel bone that the tibia comes down to )
Both tibia (shin) bones were sticking out of feet, both feet rolled back touching legs outwardly
Has a small blood clot in left leg
Now for the miracles – Every day, multiple times, we stood over and prayed over Carrie for her healing.
1st – the highway patrolman said she shouldn’t have lived but she did. The car is unrecognizable.
2nd – a traveling trauma nurse (Jamie Tyler) was there right after the wreck and had an IV she hooked up to Carrie – her blood pressure was 60 over 0 when she got to 1st emergency room. This lady saved her life. Dr McGrath was able to stabilize her (and Dr. Amy Schochler). Thanks to them and Jamie Tyler.
3rd – no brain injury and her spirits are high (all the time). I was told by a neurologist to expect short term memory loss as she had hemorrhaging in that area of the brain. Her memory is fine now!
4th – Dr in Spokane wanted to amputate both feet below knees– my buddy Joe McCarthy had friend who was a foot surgeon. Joe called him and he called me and said get her to Seattle to Dr. Benirschke who was the best in the world with rebuilding the calcaneous bone (heel bone) – so we were close to the best in the world and didn’t have to go to Miami or New York or somewhere. After the Dr. in Spokane said this was the worst he had seen in his 30 years of practice, Dr. Benirschke in Seattle looked at her feet and said “I can fix those!” We were also told to expect infection in the feet as they removed bits of carpet, dirt, and other debris from the car floor mats that had gotten in her wounds, and that the degree of infection would determine the future of her feet. She never got an infection….
5th – When we arrived in Seattle, scans showed her two spinal injuries needed to be fused with cadaver bone, so I signed the consent forms (Carrie was pretty much unconscious). Two days later when they went to do the surgery, the neuro Dr. said he must have read the films wrong, and they didn’t need to do the bone fusion after all. She just needed to wear a neck and back brace.
6th – the right inner ankle was so gouged out and torn up the Dr. told me he would need to take a small muscle from her inner thigh and transplant it to her inner ankle, as the two tendons were exposed. So, I signed the consent form on Monday for a Thursday surgery. They were going to do the operation with a microscope and the Dr. told me it was equivalent to an organ transplant and no guarantee it would take, depending on the blood flow. So they took her to surgery 3 days later. The doctor said it would be an all day surgery. He came out after an hour an told me he couldn’t explain it, but the tissue had grown back “miraculously” and they didn’t need to do the muscle transplant, that all they would need to do was a skin graft. I told him it was God’s miracle and the power of prayer.
7th – the skin grafts were originally supposed to be fairly big, but her own skin was growing back fast enough they delayed the skin grafting a week and only needed a small 2 by 8 strip taken off of her upper thigh.
8th- Dr. Benirschke, the foot surgeon, is the world’s best and most renowned, was able to piece back together her talus and calcaneous (two bones in the back of the foot) using titanium, cadaver bones, and lots and lots of screws. The surgeon in Spokane said it would be impossible to rebuild them. Dr. Benirschke has already given a talk using pictures of Carrie’s feet to other orthopedic surgeons. He says she will walk again when others said I wouldn’t.
Aside from some cosmetic surgery on her right eye due to the big scar she is home free. She has had 12 surgeries so far. I have always heard of miracles, and always wondered if I would ever get to witness any. God had shown me more miracles in the last 6 weeks than I ever imagined. These are truly miracles to have Drs see something one day and then see something vastly different the next. What a powerful testimony!!!
