A Checkup with the Neurosurgeon

No improvement in the facial paralysis today. The steroids don't seem to be helping the swelling.

We went to see the neurosurgeon today for a checkup. He agrees with the ear, nose, throat specialist that the swelling is causing the lack of facial movement. He was concerned about Brandon's left eyelid not closing all the way, and made sure that we were taking precautions to keep his eye from drying out, and protecting it, especially when sleeping or going outdoors. Brandon has been taping his left eyelid shut each night when he goes to sleep so that it won't dry out.

Brandon got his staples out today, all 30 of them. He pondered for a moment about keeping them to show his brother and sisters, but we decided to take a picture of them being removed instead.

Here is a picture of the doctor taking out Brandon's staples.






We also reviewed the cat scan images of the day Brandon went in. The doctor showed us pictures of the epidural hematoma. It was the first time Brandon had seen any cat scan pictures and we were reminded of how urgent Brandon's situation had been. After Brandon's surgery, the doctor had told us that the hematoma was a lot bigger than he had thought- it had grown a lot between the cat scan and the surgery.Praise God for providing clarity in our decision-making, for fast action for all involved, and for an excellent surgeon being on call in the emergency room.

Here is a picture of the cat scan image of the hematoma. It is the big white mass on the right side of the picture.



We thanked the doctor for saving Brandon's life :)

The doctor believes that this injury may turn into a waiting game at this point. He is sure that Brandon will make a full recovery, but it may take some time. We are hopeful for a full recovery, and grateful that the Lord knows what He's doing.

Please join us in offering prayers of gratitude and thanksgiving for sparing Brandon's life and for continued daily healing.

We pray that the Lord will heal Brandon completely for His glory.

God Bless,

~the Family

Follow up w/ Dr. Kris: 29Mar2010

Brandon went to see Dr. Kris again today. The early stages of the steroid treatment do not appear to be making any substantial progress as of yet.

Staples should come out tomorrow at the visit with the neurosurgeon. I'll try to snap a pic or two of that to post.

God Bless,

~the Family

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Weekend Update: 27Mar2010

Brandon took the opportunity Saturday morning to take a stroll around the back yard with his little sister Rebecca. She sure does love her big brother!

Brandon is slowly trying to get up and exercise with more frequency. He can take short walks but is staying on our property and doing a couple of slow-paced laps around the back yard.

There is still no improvement in his facial paralysis or his hearing. We have doctor appointments Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday's appointment is with the neurosurgeon and he will likely remove all of the 30 staples at that time. He has an appointment with the ear specialist the 2nd week of April.

His stomach is upset pretty regularly, we suspect that is because of the cocktail of pills he's having to swallow throughout the day. As he progresses, its a good sign to see the medication list shortening instead of growing.

Thanks to all for supporting us through prayer, meals, chores, taking our kids, sitting with Brandon while we're gone, encouragement, and just plain loving us. Surviving this would be almost impossible without you. We are overwhelmed with gratitude at your generosity and the ways you have blessed us. We will continue to need your support in all of these areas in the days to come.

Please pray especially for us in the coming days for courage and supernatural faith in the Lord.

God Bless,

~the Family

The Beginning: The Whole Story - A Short Version

Some of you have been asking what exactly happened to Brandon that put him in this condition. We'll provide a short summary here.

Despite what you may have heard, Brandon was not mauled by a grizzly bear (this rumor started in the hospital ICU), nor did he single-handedly take out an entire gang before one of the last survivors was finally able to hit him with a bat (this rumor originated at WSU-TC). Since Snopes.com doesn't have an urban legend section for Brandon (yet!), this will have to serve as the "official" version to put all those rumors floating around out there to rest.

On March 16, 2010 Brandon visited a podiatrist in Kennewick to have an ingrown toenail removed. He went in, had the procedure, was released, and was checking out with the receptionist in the lobby. Brandon handed the receptionist his debit card and unexpectedly passed out at the counter. When he passed out, he fell to the ground (think, timber!, not crumpled up) and hit the left side of his head just above the ear on the carpeted concrete floor.

The impact of his head on the concrete floor fractured his skull in two places and broke a blood vessel on the surface of his brain (that caused bleeding in the brain and also out of his left ear). The doctor's office called 9-1-1 and then our home number to see if anyone was there that they could notify. Brandon's sister Stephanie got the call and rushed to the doctor's office (she beat the ambulance there!). Brandon was transferred by ambulance to Kennewick General Hospital (KGH) where they performed the first of his four CAT-scans.

The CAT-scan revealed that Brandon had fractured his skull and had arterial bleeding causing a massive blood clot on the left side of his brain. The pressure of the blood clot was pushing against the brain. The emergency room doctor at KGH recommended that we transfer Brandon immediately to Kadlec to have a neurosurgeon look at him, and told us that he would likely need to have surgery right away to remove the blood clot. We asked about flying him to Spokane or Seattle but the doctor told us that it would take several hours to air-lift him, and that the risk of him not pulling through in that amount of time was very, very high. We sent him to Kadlec.

The Kadlec emergency room was waiting for Brandon when he arrived via ambulance from KGH. The neurosurgeon took another CAT-scan and that indicated that the blood clot had grown in size. Indeed, if we had attempted to fly Brandon to Spokane or Seattle, he very likely would have died en route. The neurosurgeon Dr. Fewel performed the emergency surgery to remove the blood clot from Brandon's brain and stop the bleeding. Brandon was then moved into the Intensive Care Unit.

This video below is of Brandon's vitals monitor while in ICU:



The next day Brandon also had a post-surgery CAT-scan to verify that the bleeding in his brain had indeed stopped. The bleeding was stopped, but the damage from the head trauma included losing the hearing in his left ear. Brandon was up and walking about within 24 hours of his surgery.

The video below is of Brandon stretching his legs on a walk with his mom in the hospital.



Brandon was sent home on Friday afternoon, March 19, less than 73 hours after the fall. Sometime over the weekend, Brandon began to show gradual signs of losing muscle control on the left side of his face. We had a hard time detecting it because of the swelling and seeing him all the time, but by Sunday night his face was only showing very limited muscle control and it was obvious that something had changed. Saturday night of that first weekend home, Brandon was in significant pain. We thought this was because of the reduction in his narcotics from what he was being given at the hospital. In hind sight, we think that this may have been the time when his nerve bundle was being squeezed from the swelling of the impact and surgery. Anyways, we are still not sure why Brandon cannot hear out of his left ear, nor control his face muscles on the left side, but all of the doctors think that this is due to localized swelling around the nerve bundle, and that the outlook is very, very optimistic for Brandon to realize a nearly full recovery of both his hearing and face.

So that's the "official" short story.

Praise the Lord for sparing Brandon's life! God is good, and we know that He has a purpose for this tragedy with Brandon. God sent his one and only son that "we might have life, and have it more abundantly" (John 10:10) and we hold fast to that promise.

God Bless,

~the Family

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Another Dr. Appt.: 26Mar2010

Brandon went in to see Dr. Kris Peterson yesterday. Dr. Kris is a chiropractic physician and has been looking at Brandon's overall health. In addition to the head injury Brandon's fall jarred some his vertebrae out of alignment and needed to get those straightened out. Fortunately this was a small issue compared to the other maladies he is facing in his recovery.

The doctor's are all trying to get the swelling down around Brandon's auditory and musculo-facial nerve bundle. The common thinking here is that the swelling is compressing the nerve bundle and blocking signals to and from the brain. If the swelling goes down, Brandon should be able to start re-gaining some of his facial control and maybe some of his hearing as well.

Overall, Brandon is going pretty good considering what he's been through. He is able to get up and walk about, but the driving to and from doctors offices is brutally hard on him and when he gets home he is completely exhausted.

Please pray for accelerated healing around Brandon's nerve bundle.

On another note, last night our very dear friends the Klippstein's and Workman's came over to pray for Brandon's healing. These two couples have been a part of our church family from our earliest days in the Tri-Cities and have seen our kids grow from little wee babies up to today. We are very much into healing prayer. If you or your prayer team would like to pray over Brandon, please let us know!

God Bless. We are off to another doctor appointment.

Update: Well, Dr. Kris did not see enough improvement from yesterday so has recommended that we go forward with a steroid treatment as recommended by another doctor. This is a 7 day cycle that starts heavy and tapers off at the end.

Please pray that this treatment will be effective.

God Bless,

~the Family

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Appt. with Dr. Schwartz

Dr. Schwartz is an ear, nose, and throat specialist. The Lord answered prayer today by getting us in to see the doctor. He fit us in between surgeries.

Dr. Schwartz examined Brandon's droopy face condition as well as his hearing loss. He believes that the facial problems are a result of swelling around the nerve and that this will heal with time. The damage to the nerve is likely minor because Brandon has some movement in his face on the left side. If it were severed from the fall, the damage would have been instantaneous, and he would have lost all muscle control in his face on that side. This symptom showed up after he was released which points to swelling as the cause.

The greatest part of the exam for Brandon was when Dr. Schwartz hit a tuning fork, placed it on Brandon's forehead, and asked if he could hear anything. Brandon was elated that he could hear the tuning fork! This was the first thing he has heard in his left ear since the fall. This was most excellent news as this would indicate that the hearing nerve is not severed, and increases Brandon's chances of hearing again. Praise the Lord!

The doctor cleared out a little residue from Brandon's ear but this was very painful.

At this time Dr. Schwartz is consulting with some ear experts in Spokane to make sure his prognosis is accurate and he thinks Brandon will over time make a nearly full recovery.

We will continue to pray for that.

God bless,

~the Family

Update: Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Brandon is doing well today. His pain level seems to be holding pretty manageable. There is no real improvement in his hearing. We are hoping that he will get into the ear-nose-throat specialist this week so we can get a better prognosis of what's going on with his ear.

We are concerned that the left side of Brandon's face is not responding normally. He cannot smile, wink, blink, or raise his eyebrows on the left side, and it appears to by similar to Bell's palsy. This is not good. The muscles in the face are controlled by a nerve that is bundled with the auditory nerve and the facial response with the loss of hearing are not good indicators. The scary part is that his face was responding well when in the hospital, but is not responding now. The neural surgeon says this is an ear-nose-throat issue (because of the nerve bundle).

Please continue to pray. We remain hopeful in God's plan for Brandon!

Tracking Brandon's Progress

The family is setting up this blog so that anyone interested can track Brandon's progress. We cannot keep up with the email lists. We'll try to update this blog at least once a day, but maybe more as things happen and we can fit it in. We are all very busy trying to make sure Brandon is comfortable and keeping the household running, so please bear with us.

Please continue to pray for Brandon. Now that he is home he only has access to a limited amount of pain medication and he is in a LOT of pain.

God Bless,

~the Family