The Unexpected Homecoming

Elder McBride arrived in Phoenix Wednesday night about 10pm after a long day of travel. We were so glad to get him home. He was accompanied by a guardian angel disguised as a senior missionary named Elder Kilgore. He is the doctor that serves as the area medical advisor for the Church in the Caribbean. Taylor was tired, but able to talk and visit with us. His speech is good, he is sharp, but a little groggy.

We immediately took Taylor to St. Joesph's Hospital, home of Barrow's Neurological Institute and went through the normal intake procedure. We met with the ER physician, who looked at Taylor's MRI and immediately bumped his case to highest "Red" priority. (The doctor was incredibly helpful - an LDS man named Dr. Bishop - I know, but I'm too tired to make the joke)

In less than 2 hours Taylor had flown through ER, labs, radiology and was in his room in the ICU. The haste did add to our stress. We met with a couple of doctors so far, but are waiting to meet with the main neuro guys later this morning. Chrissie and I spent the night here with him.

So far, it is our understanding that the skull fracture is "significant" or "large", depending on the doctor. It is also quite low on the back of his head. Because of this, the depressed part of the skull is pushing on his cerebellum, which is a part of the brain that influences balance and coordination. There is some internal bleeding and swelling.

One of the neurologists expressed his surprise that Taylor was able to communicate so well and had good motor skills for someone with this type of injury. Apparently the doctor is not familiar with the power of the priesthood and the prayers of hundreds of faithful saints.

It is obvious that the right decision was made to bring him here, and we are grateful for the missionary department for getting him home to us.

We will know more about what the doctors' plan of attack is later this morning. Surgery is almost guaranteed, but we know very little a this point as to what that entails. Will post later today.

The good news: He is home, he is still Taylor, and the Lord is heavily involved.

(Thursday, 5:30am)

This is in the middle of the night after they got him to ICU.  They gave him lots of powerful medicines and he could finally relax and sleep.  I can't even begin to express my feelings that night.

It Just Keeps Getting Worse

Taylor is on his way home.  Turns out that his skull was fractured after all. He had a rough night with pain and vomiting, so they re-scanned him this morning and found a compression fracture. I was able to speak to the neurosurgeon, his Mission President, and the medical advisors in SLC, and they all agreed that it would be better for Taylor to be treated here in the States, rather than in the DR.

A few technical points:

-There is no bleeding inside his head.

-The surgery will be to lift the compressed bone back into place.

-The doctor (in the DR) doesn't think it will be too complicated of a procedure.

-They also want to make sure everything is in the right place, and is clean and won't get infected.

He is flying home commercial, which is a good sign, and will arrive late tonight and go straight to Barrows Hospital in Phoenix. (Which isn't nearly as good as Barro's Pizza)

We will let you know more information as we have it.  The doctors, the Church and all of you have been wonderful and supportive. We appreciate all of you.  Please keep Taylor in your prayers.  The hope is that he can quickly return to the mission field and finish out his service.

He does NOT want to come home.

Change of plans...

Turns out the airline would not let Taylor board without specific documentation, or the right kind of medical supervision. He will have both tomorrow, and they will try again. So, for now, it is back to the hospital.  We will probably get to talk to him today, and will update accordingly. (Tuesday, 12:15pm)

It looks like it will now be Wednesday before Taylor gets home...

Taylor is scheduled to fly out tomorrow morning and arrive tomorrow night. This time he will be accompanied by a wonderful doctor who is serving as the church medical coordinator for the Caribbean - so they'll let him on the plane. Both Chrissie and I got to talk to Taylor for a few minutes. He sounded tired, but coherent, and was able to communicate fine. He had just gotten back to the hospital after the airport fiasco. It was reassuring to hear him. His biggest worry was whether or not he will be able to return to the DR.

I did have a chance to learn more about what could be happening with the injury. Anytime there is a skull fracture with an open wound, it justifies a surgery to go in and make sure there isn't anything that is going to cause infection. Also, the doctors will need to take a look at the dent in the back of his head and decide if they will need to try and lift the bone back to where it should be. (Steve, feel free to edit here)

We are overwhelmed by the outreach and support we have received today. We truly feel loved, and know that Taylor is loved too. Thanks for the texts, emails, FB posts, visits and phone calls. We appreciate every one of them. Please don't feel like you need to leave us alone - you don't. We want you all "in the loop". And your cookies.

Love,

The McBrides

 (Tuesday 7:00pm) 

Spoke with Taylor again this morning. He is on his way to the airport. This time he isn't wearing pajamas, and has a doctor with him. He should be good to go. He reports feeling about the same, still having nausea and some vomiting - the car ride isn't helping. He suggested we not have any big meal planned for him because he isn't eating yet - I told him not to worry - we are just taking him straight to the hospital, and he said "Good."  :(

So, he is scheduled to be back in Phoenix tonight, and we should have some better information by this time tomorrow.

(Wednesday 7:00am) 

The Dreaded Phone Call

This account of Taylor's accident is taken straight off of his missionary blog:

Dear Friends and Family,

I was waiting and wondering this afternoon why I hadn't heard from my boy yet, when I got a call from the mission president's wife.  She said that Taylor had been in an accident.  She said that he and some other missionaries were going to the church to play basketball. Taylor opened a huge sliding metal gate and it broke and fell on his head.  The gate knocked him to the ground where he hit his head again on the curb.  Thankfully, one of the missionaries that was with him was a trained EMT.  They gave him a blessing and he cared for him and called an ambulance.  Eventually, a lady stopped and asked if she could give him a ride to the hospital.  When they told her they were waiting for an ambulance, she told them that it could take hours.  So, they loaded up in the car and went to the hospital.  The lady even gave him some brand new pajamas that she had just bought for her son because his clothes were bloody.  What an angel.  I am very thankful for her.  

The Antivilo's met them there and have been very involved in his care.  He has a neurosurgeon that was trained in Puerto Rico and then the church has a doctor there that they are consulting with also.  He has 20 something stitches on his head and they x-rayed him and gave him a CT scan.  He was very confused and has a concussion and so they are keeping him overnight in the hospital.  The missionary that is a EMT is also staying with him tonight.

It has been a very trying and emotional afternoon and evening.  Here is a first-hand account from one of the missionaries that was there  I hope he doesn't mind.  It was very disturbing for me to read, but it really tells what happened:

"still pouring rain bye the way and we were soaked. elder mcbride opened up the huge wrought iron gate to the church that slides open. he opened it enough to walk in and went in and then the support pole for the gate broke and the entire gate fell on him. the gate hit him in the back of the head and then he turned sideways and fell over backward and hit his head on the curb as well. so he started having convulsions and bleeding from his head, apart from my comp and i and him and his comp there was one other companionship there. by now there was a huge crowd of people around not doing anything. elder lesuier and i got our shirts off and held them to the back of his head to stop the bleeding, and then i had mcbride´s comp elder sena hold my shirt so that i could give him a blessing. here they have no ambulances so people were coming on motors to try to take him and we kept saying no cause we all had to stay together and were all trippin out cause emergencies are handled a lot differently here. an suv stopped with two ladies in it and we got him loaded in the car and tried to grab all of our stuff and left. 2 of our 3 phones didnt work cause they were now wet but we finally got a hold of the mission president to tell him what was going on. we got him to the hospital and they brought out a gernie and started doing their thing. basically things are a lot different here than what i am used to in the states so im glad that everything turned out alright. they got him stitched up and he is going to stay in the hospital overnight so that they can keep an eye on him to make sure that he is okay."

I just got another phone call from sweet Sister Antivilo.  She said that Taylor's companion called tonight and said that he was worse and he was throwing up.  They went over to see him and then talked to both doctors again.  They both reassured her that he was okay and that it was normal for what he was going through.  They thought about letting him call me, but he was pretty out of it and medicated and falling asleep.  She is very confident that he is being properly taken care of and will call if anything goes wrong.

Please keep Taylor in your prayers everybody.  He could use a letter from anyone who can write also - to help keep his spirits up.  We love him so much and pray that he will recover quickly.  I will keep you updated.

Chrissie

Here are pictures of that time that we got later:

Ouch

The horrible giant gate (already fixed).  See the bags of cement

At the hospital in the DR -  Letters from missionaries

 Elder Allen (the EMT), Elder ? (the area doctor), Taylor, ?, President Antivilo and Elder Sena

Still in the DR

Salt Lake City

I got a wonderful surprise from my hubby!  He got me a ticket to go see Emily in Salt Lake!  She has been living there since August while she interns for the church.  I have wanted to go up all year and see her and the environment she lives in - but just haven't had the chance.

Emily decided that she is going back to BYU to get her teaching degree in high school English.  She will be moving back to Provo in a couple of weeks.  So...I am really happy that I got this opportunity to visit her in her SLC environment.  It also worked really well because the boys were going on "Fathers and Sons" and I have always spent that time with my only daughter!

We had such a great time doing everything and nothing!  We saw movies and ate yummy food.  We drove to Provo and bought cinnamon bears and went to the Carl Bloch exhibit (AMAZING!!).  We wandered around IKEA, watched more movies, visited with friends, went to the library and enjoyed the weather.  But, THIS morning Emily and I got up and went to the "Music and the Spoken Word" at the Tabernacle. I had never been and I was really excited! It was such a great experience...I loved it!  Afterwards we walked around in the rain. It was just drizzling but it was beautiful.

I loved taking pictures of the beautiful grounds. I love the peaceful feeling I always feel when I am here.

This is Emily standing in front of the church office building where she works in the Welfare Department.  She has loved working and living here, but is ready to start the next phase of her life.  Thank you Emily for showing me such a wonderful time!  I LOVED spending mother/daughter time with you and chatting with your roommates.  :)

 In front of her cute little house

View from the top of the SLC library

Father & Sons 2011

Brad here, hijacking the blog.  Chrissie is up in Utah running around with Emily, so men do what men do best:  Get dirty, shoot things, and eat unhealthily.

Our camp was up on the Rim past Strawberry.

We ate buffalo wings for dinner. They were hotter than usual, but the boys had plenty of root beer to wash them down. We enjoyed hanging out and sharing a campfire with the Kemptons and the Crocketts. S'mores rule.

The next morning we had our traditional target practice with a bb gun.

After we packed up, we went to visit the Tonto Natural Bridge. My boys had never seen it, and we dragged the Aubrey, Lee and Lewis families with us.

It was a cool and beautiful underneath the bridge. It was a good hike.

For the record, Alex is still one of my sons. He had a volleyball tournament and Prom to go to, so he couldn't come with us. We missed him.

Around the World with Food

A couple of weeks ago, Brad and I had the opportunity to finally try Dominican food!  We were so excited to see what Taylor has been eating for the last year and a half.  We tried oxtail, pork and moro (mixed rice and beans) and we also had tostones and maduros (fried green and fried ripe plantains).  I was really nervous to try the oxtail, but it just tasted kind of like pot roast.  We both liked the tostones but didn't like the maduros much.  Taylor said that he has never even seen oxtail??? and was surprised that we didn't like the maduros cuz he likes it a lot.  He said that the tostones are served almost like french fries with every meal.  It was so fun to try some new stuff!

 Oxtail and Moro

Tostones and Maduros

While I am posting about food, I might as well include our experience with crickets!  Brad and I teach the 16 year old Sunday School class and we are teaching the New Testament this year.  We had a lesson that talked a lot about John the Baptist and so Brad got the clever idea to order some flavored crickets for those brave enough to try!  Unfortunately, we both got the flu (the worst I have ever had in my life) and had to get a substitute, so we weren't able to watch the kids do it.  Well, we had some extra boxes left over and Ryan had been begging for a month to try them.  In the meantime, I had sent a box over in Taylor's Valentine box for he and his companion to try.  Anyway, I finally let Ryan try them.  I think they were sour cream and onion?!  He wasn't scared at all and ate two of them.  They browbeat me into trying one and I thought I was gonna die.  I'm not the kind of girl who will necessarily try anything.  Needless to say, I was having cow and I look like such a dork in the picture!  At least I can say I did it now!

"Dan the Man" aka "Boonster" Turns 14!

Our Danny turned 14 today!  Wow, I know I say this all the time - but "where has the time gone!"  I don't have many digital pictures of Danny.  I need to go back through all the old pictures and scan them.  But, I was lucky to find some old ones that Brad took before I even had a digital camera.  I remember thinking that he was crazy to do it that way.  I liked my film camera. :)  Anyway, here are some cute memories of Danny.

 Danny was a slow walker.  The doctors were really worried about him and were testing for muscular dystrophy because he was so slow.  Thankfully, everything was just fine.  This pic was taken in Tom Sawyer's cave and my favorite memory then was that this was the first time he walked so long.  He hadn't been walking very long, but walked through the whole cave by himself and we were so proud!

 Danny has always been a great camper - I guess all our boys have.  But I LOVE this pic. So cute!  He was my little buddy back then.

 I'm not sure how old he is here, but he has such a cute grin!

 Ditto!  See the puppy calendar in the background?  When he was about this age, he used to crawl all around on the floor and pretend he was a puppy...constantly!

 Look at the tall handsome young man that he has grown into!  He was so surprised to get this BYU "Jimmer" jersey for his birthday.  We have all really enjoyed watching BYU do so well in the NCAA tournaments and we have all gone a little Jimmer crazy.

Happy Birthday Danny!  You are growing into such a kind and wonderful young man.  Dad and I appreciate so much how seriously you take your church callings and are proud of your growing knowledge of the Gospel.  I love to see you at night reading your scriptures right before bed.  Keep up the good work and you will go far in life.  We love you more than anything :D

Japan

In the last couple of weeks, there was an 8.9 earthquake just off the coast of Northern Japan and then a massive tsunami.  It has been absolutely heartbreaking watching footage and seeing pictures of the destruction that has taken place.  They are still unsure of the number of the dead. And to top it all off, there is a nuclear disaster/emergency taking place.  The tsunami flooded the power supply that keeps the fuel rods cool and many heros have spent the last 2 weeks trying to get it under control. It is freezing, there is a food shortage and the people there are suffering terribly.  What really tugs at my heartstrings is how the people are handling it.  They are patient and courteous and there is no looting going on like there would be almost any other place in the world. The news people are saying that the Japanese people are the most prepared on earth. I hope and pray that their suffering will be relieved soon and that the nuclear crisis will be resolved soon. I truly can't imagine what they must be going through.

Beauty & Culture

We had two concerts back to back last week.  This was the gorgeous view on the way into the high school where Danny's Jr. High orchestra was performing.  It took my breath away.  Watching my sons musical performances was pretty awesome too.  It makes me so happy that they love music and that they are trying to be well-rounded.  They do it because they want to.  :)

Danny in the 8th grade orchestra for Greenfield Junior High

Alex on the right in the back.  He is in the Concert Choir for Highland High School.

Kirk Jones

Mike Plowman, Brad, Steve Mousser, KIRK JONES, Mike Ward, John Davis

We had a dear friend pass away a couple of weeks ago.  He was only 53 years old.  His name was Kirk Jones and he had ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease).  I have thought about Kirk and Karen a lot this last couple of weeks.  It is impossible to summarize his life in just a paragraph or two, but I just wanted to share how much he touched our lives.  And by "our" lives - I don't just mean my family's, but our whole "ward family".  Kirk and Karen moved into the ward 2 1/2 years ago.  They knew something was wrong and suspected ALS, but got the formal diagnosis soon after they moved in.  The thing that struck me so much about him was his friendliness and how happy he seemed.  Over the last couple of years, we watched his body wither away, but we were also privileged to watch his spirit grow brighter and stronger.  

He served as Executive Secretary to Brad while he was Bishop and was just released on October 31, 2010 with the rest of the bishopric.  He was so good at names.  I think he knew everyone and had the gift to make us all feel special and like he was our best friend.  Our ward had the opportunity to serve him and his family over the years, but I feel like what we received from Kirk was definitely more than we gave.  I know that he blessed my family's life greatly and we are so thankful that we got to know him.  We will miss him dearly.

Luckiest Boy in the World!

Danny went bowling for a friend's birthday.  Each boy was given a $5 card to use on some of the other games that were there.  Danny used that and $2 of his own and came home with a 16 gig Ipod Nano!  What?  That just doesn't happen!  He played one of those stupid chance games that I hate so bad, but it also had to do a lot with timing . . . which Danny obviously had :)  I am really happy (and jealous) :) for him that he won it - but now my boys are gonna think those games are even cooler.  It's a little too much like gambling for my taste so we usually try and stay away from them.  It's really ironic because ever since we have had kids, their dad has really discouraged them from playing those games - always telling them "you never win!"