Update on Derek

Sorry it has been awhile and I have left many of you hanging, but finding the energy and time to sit down and write all that has happened in the last 56 hours is very difficult. I want to thank everyone for all your prayers and they are being heard and answered in awesome and unusual ways!

Let me start from the beginning and then I will tell you where he stands right now and what the possibilities are for the future. Details surrounding the accident are still coming in a little here and a little there. What we know for sure is that Derek was pulling out into an intersection to turn when he was T-boned by an oncoming car driving at excessive speed between 1:30 and 2:00 Saturday morning. He was not wearing his seat belt, which is unusual for Derek especially in his small pickup. He was thrown through the drivers side window and suffered head trauma and lung injuries on his way out and he landed on the curb about 8 feet from his vehicle where he suffered the severe head injuries. 4 nurses happen to be in the parking lot and witnessed the accident and when they got to Derek he was not breathing and they began CPR immediately. There was also an officer that saw the accident from his rear view mirror and called Emergency Services. They arrived shortly after the accident happened and took over the situation. As they were transporting him to the hospital, they lost him again and began CPR. As soon as they arrived at the hospital they continued to do CPR and began administering shock treatment to bring him back. After 28 minutes (this is a very long time for his brain to be without a steady supply of oxygen) they were ready to pronounce him dead when his heart started up. They began to evaluate injuries and realized this was not something that North Platte hospital was able to handle and they prepared him to be transported Flight for Life to Kearney Hospital and he arrived there sometime shortly after 4:00 Saturday morning. He went into surgery about 5:00 to repair what they could and to put in a pressure monitor in his brain to assesses the pressure and swelling on his brain. That is when they gave us the 48-72 hour window of this is going to get worse and we have know idea of how bad it will get, but we will be very aggressive in treating the pressure in his brain as the swelling increases. They also put in three drain tubes, one in his skull and one on each lung. The first concern was the head trauma, but that wasn't his only life threatening injury. His lungs took a huge blow and there was a lot of bruising and damage done to them as well. He also aspirated the contents of his stomach into his lungs while CPR was being administered. Derek has had severe Asthma all of his life. So his body is in for a long fight against many factors.

About 10 hours after the accident Derek was showing some signs of response to pain. That was short lived and as the swelling increased and the risks continued to rise. They shortly began maxing out medications to decrease swelling and we had to start looking at other options. Surgery to remove his skull or drill holes were quickly put on the table, but were ruled out as options as his brain was under so much pressure that it would be like squeezing on a tube of toothpaste and then quickly removing the cap. So as quickly as they were put on the table, they were removed and other options were talked about and agreed upon. We agreed to allow them to aggressively treat him as needed to keep his pressure down and his lungs functioning. That has proved to be very difficult. They had tried many things and while each attempt helped temporarily and continued to buy him time, 10:00 Sunday morning we had to start making some difficult decisions. All the time they were not able to tell us how much injuries to his brain functions he had sustained so we had to hope for the best and give him every opportunity to get past the 72 hour mark so that we could in fact be able to evaluate it. The doctor pulled all the immediate family in to make the decision to resuscitate if he Coded. As tough as it was to make this decision, we all agreed that his body and brain had already been through too much and didn't feel like it could handle any more, so we gave the order to not resuscitate if he Coded. They continued to treat his swelling and cranial pressure aggressive, but by afternoon we had reached reached another bridge where we had to make another tough decision. They had already sedated him, put him on anti-seizure medication, administered pain meds to alleviate him from any pain and administered a drug to temporarily paralyzed him from the neck down. Our only option that was on the table at this point was to administer a drug that would put him into a deep coma and shut his brain down completely. He was already in a coma, but this would shut all activity in the brain down and allow the machines to do the work they needed to do without his body fighting them. His brain was telling his lungs to breath faster than the machine and was fighting against it. The swelling continued to rise and reached a level by early evening that this step was necessary and they began the process. The first several "bullets" of medication was given and his body was not responding as they had hoped. It helped temporarily and the had to begin giving the drug through his IV line. They quickly went through level one and had to move on to level two. By 9:00 we were told to brace ourselves as he was not expected to make it through the night. At 11:30 everyone was asked to leave the room as they felt like he was being over-stimulated. At this point, they began giving him medicine that actually increased his blood pressure to help force blood flow to his brain. Another miracle happened. About 1:30 his cranial pressure began dropping and the blood flow to his brain began to increase. About this time I woke up b/c my dad snores REALLY bad and I couldn't sleep so I went back to his room and asked if I could just sit back and watch Derek. I wouldn't hold his hand and talk to him (over stimulation was still a concern) and they allowed me to do that. I stayed with Derek until 3:00 and they asked me to leave so they could do a chest x-ray and they had some other things that they needed to do with him so I left. While I sat there and prayed, his numbers continued to look better and better and better and they were able to back off the blood pressure medicine. His cranial pressure and blood flow to his brain numbers continued to look good and he oxygen levels in his lungs were starting to show improvement as well. I was able to talk to the nurses and one of my mother's friends through this time and I felt good when I left him and was able to lie down and rest for a few hours. The news hasn't changed much today...his levels continue to look better and he seems to have been through the worst of the swelling. As long as nothing else life threatening comes into play, the nurses believe he has a good chance of living.

Now the question remains, What will his quality of life be? We will not know that answer for several days as he has to be brought out of the deep coma to be able to evaluate this. We are all still praying that GOD continues to provide miracles and that Derek will recover from this with minimal permanent damage to his brain and can live a life that he will be happy with. We all (my mother and Derek's twin Brother Blake not so much) realize but don't like to think about fact that he could have little to no brain function left and we would have no option but to remove life support as Derek (or none of us for that matter) would want to live the rest of our lives in a nursing home, not knowing anyone, not able to breath and eat on his own, not able to take care of his basic needs, and no chance of ever changing that. While we realize this is still a possibility, we do not know what God has planned and cling to the hope that God would not have provided 4 nurses on the scene of the accident, allowed his heart to begin beating again after 28 minutes of intense CPR and shock treatments, bring him though a night were the told us he wouldn't make it to live the rest of his life in a nursing home. God is a miracle worker and continues to provide one miracle after another and we pray that he will continue to provide miracles for Derek. We serve a might and awesome God that has a plan for Derek and everyone else.

Please continue to pray for a miracle for Derek and for the decisions that we as a family will be facing in the next 3-5 days as they will not be easy ones. Pray that God continues to surround us with his grace and mercy and provide the strength and clear minds to make the decisions that we will have to make.

I will update when I am able to and hope that this information gives you an idea of where we have been and what the next few days will hold for us. Thanks for all your prayers!