If you are visiting this post, and it’s your first time reading about Chase’s accident, you are on PART 5 of a series of posts telling the story of Chase’s injury.
Click here for PART 1 Click here for PART 2
Click here for PART 3 Click here for PART 4
Saturday, November 17th 2018
After being discharged from the hospital with specific directions to eat, rest, and repeat, Chase went straight to bed in our room in our condo. I slowly unloaded the car from our stay at the hospital. I had accumulated more items in that hospital room in that 4 days than I would like to admit. We were back at home as a family and everything seemed right in the world. We were back on track and everything was going back to normal.
We had a wedding that we had been invited to, and RSVP’ed yes for, that was on the night Chase got discharged from the hospital. We decided to go, just for a little, as it was one of Chase’s good buddies from his college baseball team that was getting married. They had their wedding at this beautiful castle in Ramona, San Diego called Mt. Woodson Castle. Since they were having the wedding so close to us (they all live close to Redlands and Lake Elsinore), we decided just to stop by, since all of Chase’s college friends only get together like twice a year. We ended up going, with Kennedy in tow, and staying for about an hour, just to say hello to everyone. It was great to see all of our friends and it was great for them to see Chase, alive and well. Once the music started and the lights started to become more “nightclub” and less “wedding ceremony”, we decided to make our exit.
Saturday Night
The first night was ROUGH. Chase experienced what is called ICU delirium. If you are interested in reading more about ICU delirium, you can read about it here, but I will try to give you the abridged version. Basically, there are many causes of ICU delirium, but it has to do with the lights and sounds of the ICU and coming down off the extremely strong pain mediation they were giving him in the hospital. Truly, it is like a time warp when you get into the ICU and you don’t know what time of day it is, what day of the week it is, or really even how much time has passed. This all impacts the brain differently, and for some people, like Chase, this change in surroundings, the music and lights from the hour we spent with our friends at their wedding, the trauma his brain went through and the pain medication caused the perfect chemical brain reaction for HALLUCINATIONS.
I had tried to brush Chase’s hair the night we got home, because, as you can imagine, sleeping in a hospital bed non stop for 4 days and not washing his hair caused a giant “rats nest” on the back of his head. Chase, at the time, was very out of it due to his pain meds, but sat up and let me brush his hair. He kept making these faces like he was terrified. I just thought he was in pain, as he had been in CONSTANT pain since the injury, but it turns out, at the time, HE THOUGHT I WAS A DEMON BRUSHING HIS HAIR WITH A BRUSH WITH KNIVES FOR BRISTLES. (WHAT?!? Obviously, I found this out later)
He was waking up all night with crazy dreams, describing people and places that sounded like they had come straight from a horror movie. His brain was trying to deal with the trauma he had gone through but was reacting in a way that kept him up with terrible nightmares all night. He was talking in his sleep, and sleep walking, and it was hard to wake him at times and bring him back to reality. I was also giving him his pain medication around the clock, at their different designated times, which was hard to do. I actually called my dad to come and pick up Kennedy that night, because having to deal with a crying baby while my husband was having manic episodes was not something I felt like I could manage.
Sunday, November 18th 2018
When morning finally came, and Chase was able to stay awake for a little, we both agreed that he should try to cut it without the pain medication for a little bit, to see if that would help with the hallucinations. It did, but left the door open for all the pain to come rushing back to his head. He told me that he would rather experience the pain, then have to live in that state of delusion, so it must’ve been truly terrifying for him to want to cut out his pain meds all together.
Monday November 19th – Wednesday November 21st
The next three days went by just as normal, except for the fact I had to to help Chase with, literally, everything. It was hard for him to get up, let alone make himself food or do really anything self-sufficient. It was an absolute trying time for me, as a wife and new mom. On one hand, I understood everything Chase was going through. I was there supporting him, and helping him as much as I could, but on the other, I just wished he would hurry up and get better already, because it was really, really hard. He was supposed to be helping me with our new baby. He was supposed to be changing half the poopy diapers. He was supposed to be taking care of her half the time so I could get a snooze in. And instead, he was sleeping, all day, and all night. And with good reason! He needed the sleep! He needed to rest and heal. He physically couldn’t do any of these things, but there was part of me that was SO MAD at him for leaving me with all of this responsibility to deal with on my own. It was, and still is, difficult for me to think about those feelings that I had and I feel so guilty for feeling them. I struggle with the fact that I couldn’t have been the best caregiver or wife, if I was having these feelings about him, when there was truly nothing he could do about it.
My grandma flew in from Missouri on Tuesday, because Kennedy was set to be baptized on Saturday and Wednesday was actually Chase’s 29th birthday,so we had his family over for a VERY small get together that night. He opened presents, ate dinner and pretty much went straight back to sleep.
Clearly, he didn’t want to smile for this picture.
Little did we know, the next day, Thanksgiving Day, would be the day that changed everything for us.
