I've been very fortunate that my boys haven't had any major injuries in their lives--they've never broken or sprained anything, no big falls, no stitches, no accidents, nothing. That came to an abrupt end last month when John almost got hit by a UPS truck while riding his bike in our neighborhood. In order to avoid being hit, he had to ride his bike into a tree, which destroyed the bike and cut up his upper right thigh. It could have been SO much worse--he could have been hit, run over, hit his head and sustained brain damage (he wasn't wearing a helmet 😠), broken a leg or an arm, punctured his man parts (it was pretty close 😬), or even died. I fully believe that he was being watched out over and I consider it a miracle that it wasn't any worse than it was.
After the UPS driver drove John and his mangled bike home, the real adventure began. I didn't know it at the time but John and I were going to be enduring the next ~15 hours together while trying to get his wounds treated. First I brought him to Urgent Care in town, where they determined that the cuts were too deep to stitch up and he'd have to go to the E.R. There were two cuts and they were very bloody, and they were concerned that one of his arteries may have been hit.
So then we drove to the E.R. in Worcester, where we spent the next >12 hours, from 5:30 p.m. until around 6:15 the next morning! I had no idea it would take so long, and I really wished I'd brought a book. We weren't even able to go back to the actual E.R. and be seen by a doctor until 10:30 that night. The wait times were terrible! While I'm very grateful for the good care he was given once he was given it, here's some obvious life advice: for many reasons, stay away from emergency rooms if at all possible!
You do NOT want to see what it looked like under there. 🤮
Here he was before being wheeled down to get X-rays, which had to be done twice that night.
Fortunately there was no debris in the lacerations and no arteries had been nicked, so no surgical procedures were required (phew!). After the nurse put John on an antibiotic drip and a morphine drip, the doctor cleaned out the wounds and then stapled them shut. 😬 I could barely look when he did that, and John was cringing in pain the whole time, poor kid. After that we had to wait in our room for several more hours (I forget why exactly) so we tried to sleep. John had the gurney bed and fell asleep in it, and I had to make do in a chair, which I curled up in under a blanket and then proceeded to get zero sleep. 😐
I was so glad when we were released and could finally go home. As we drove home, the sun was coming up, and despite the stress and inconvenience of the whole ordeal, I was so thankful that John was alive and well and had gotten the good medical care he needed. Like I said before, it easily could have been much, much worse.
When we got home, we went to bed and slept for most of the rest of the morning. What a memorable mother-son "adventure" we'd had together! {Side note, he wasn't able to wrestle at his club for a couple of weeks, but the cuts have healed well and he's back to normal. He'll always have two scars there though. Or until he gets resurrected anyway. 😉}
Ten days later we went to the temple with youth from our ward, where John performed many baptisms, including baptizing Sam for their grandfather who died in 1980 who John is named after. That was very special and had been a long time coming. Who knows? Maybe it's things like that that are reasons why he still has a lot of important things to do and it isn't his time go yet (or hopefully ever!).
John and Conner are church BFFs and they call each other "bro-friends" and "homey-sexuals." I have to admit that I think that last one is particularly clever and funny, even though I have to act like it's not. 😂
For Senior Halloween at school, John and his friends dressed up like animals and John was Mickey Mouse. I thought he looked so cute!
Check out the pretty foliage behind him, as well as his new car!
We got John a used BMW SUV in September. I can't believe my kid has a BMW, a vehicle that I've always liked and wanted, but the only reason he does is because the used car market is crazy right now and we were able to find an SUV (which is good for winter) that came in under our budget and it happened to be a BMW. It's a 2011 and it had 127,000 miles on it. It was in good shape, but not as good of shape as we thought when it failed inspection and needed $5K of work put into it! So it blew the budget after all. 😭 But it's done and he's got a reliable car now and he loves it. And he's alive and well and life is good!
I have some good blackmail pictures to give to John's friends on the wrestling team this season if I need/want to. They've been asking me for these for awhile. I'm just waiting for the right moment.
This one is the funniest!
He got to meet some of the Disney princesses, which he was excited about!
You can imagine how funny high school guys will think these pictures are. 😄
It was an eventful month for John! I'm so glad that he survived it--literally!
