Today's Drama

Last night we received a call from our neighbor Carolyn telling us that her son Gabe, who we've known since he's been in diapers, was involved in a mishap in Costa Rica. Gabe is spending a month there as an exchange student through AFS. The word last night was that Gabe suffered a concussion in a swimming accident and was being transported to San Jose for treatment. This morning we woke up to the news that Gabe had broken his neck and the doctors had taken some bone from his hip and implanted it in his spine. Not good news. I spent some time with Carolyn this morning and this afternoon trying to help anyway I could. Another friend, Kelly, was spearheading the effort to get Carolyn's passport in order, and get her out of the country to be with her son. As the day wore on, there was no new news on his condition. All we knew was that he had come out of surgery and was awake. Naturally, everyone gravitates to the worst possible scenario. We had heard that Gabe had no feeling in his fingers or toes when he was transported to the hospital, and that the doctors knew that there was swelling around the spinal cord. Conclusion drawn by those of us thousands of miles away? Paralysis. This was driving me crazy. After having worked in an emergency room for two years, I can tell you that jumping to conclusions about the status of a patient is just about the easiest thing in the world to do. I didn't want to tell Carolyn that everything was going to be alright, nor did I want to jump on the doom and gloom bandwagon. The lack of information was excruciating.

We did get some happy news later on tonight. Gabe called his mom and said that he could raise his arm above his head and wiggle his toes. This is good news. But.... just as we shouldn't have jumped to negative conclusions when we first heard about the accident, neither should we conclude from the information we have now that Gabe will make a full recovery. Time will tell and we'll hope and pray for the best outcome.