scared & thankful

Early Tuesday morning, I recieved that middle of the night phone call all parents dread. My daughter was calling to tell me her brother had had an accident, fallen, had a seizure and was on a respirator in a hospital over 2,000 miles away. I was a complete mess from that moment on, and my wonderful husband took over,  immediately booking a flight "home" to St. Louis for me. 10 hours later, I was holding my sedated sons hand, stroking his head, and whispering tearful "I love you's" into his ear.
Long story short...he had been on a month long skateboarding roadtrip with other 7 guys , traveling between St. Louis to Phoenix to San Diego, to Los Angeles, back to Phoenix and returning home to St.Louis the night this happened. 6 of the 8 guys had suffered from stomach flu-my son somehow escaped it-but he had been feeling nauseous for the past few days of riding in the van, so had not eaten much at all. They were about 10 miles from home, stopping one last time to get gas and after piling out of the van, he felt dizzy and the nexdt thing he knew, he blacked out, fell headfirst onto the pavement and then came to wondering why he was all wet (from snow he landed in). He gashed his forehead and went to the restroom to clean up, then just as they were taking off again, he became disoriented and started to seize. His friends (God bless them all) were smart enough to know what to do, and got him to the nearest hospital within 20 minutes of speeding through stoplights (thankfully it was around 3 am, so not much traffic on the road to hold them up). He was put on a respirator, intubated, had a ct scan, EEG & MRI, and was in ICU for most of the day. The tests all came back ok other than a tiny undetermined spot on the MRI which they said was not likely the cause. He had been heavily sedated (they said he fought massively when he came to in the ER- it took 8 nurses to hold him down and he took swings at two of them...one even had to go home from injuries on her face!). I spent the night sleeping in a chair next to his hospital bed as he was still very sedated and not able to talk or remember much, wasn't yet eating and was very sore & achy all over, and still being monitered & getting vitals taken every hour or so. The next day he seemed much better, started regaining memory of what had happened and being able to articulate it, got a little of his appetite back and started moving around on his own. After talking to his doctors, he was released about 58 hours after it all happened. He stayed here at his sisters house with us for 2 days, then at his dads overnight & now he is catching up with all of his friends who have missed him for the past month and worried about him through this ordeal.We are convinced that being sick to his stomach from being crammed in the van riding for so long caused him to be not eat which made his blood sugar drop making him dizzy and causing him to pass out, and the head trauma caused the seizure. Thankfully, he regained his motor skills & memory and just has some facial lacerations, lingering headache from the concussion.

(*deep breath* i have never been so scared in my life...* sigh*...my tears won't stop falling....)

Obviously, I have not been "myself" since then, and am just now feeling up to talking about it and starting to think about seeing some of my friends here in my hometown.
I just wanted to write this catch-up post and also share my latest photo for the 52 Photos Project.
This week's prompt was to choose one of 3 prompts from last year:
NOURISH, A HEART or RED.

Here is my photo...

I think it shows both a heart and nourish. The little love inside my daughters tummy in this photo is now 2 and a half...and has been a bright light to me during these dark past few days that brought me back "home" to my babies.
All in all, a very scary experience turned out much better than it could have, and for that, I am a very thankful and
Happy Me-Laurie Z