Virtute.org

My sister shared a note on facebook today that my mother had written for my brother who was seriously injured in a car accident as a baby.  I had to read it in bits and pieces today because I didn’t have time to just sit and read which meant that I would read a paragraph or two then think about it as I went about my day.  As my mind was drawn back to that time, I have been anxiously waiting for a time that I could sit and write about the memories that have flooded back to me.  I have had such strong emotions as I read my mother’s words, both as a participant in the memory, and as a mother myself imagining the pain and stress and depression that my own mother felt during this time.

I will share my memories in my next post, but first I want to share part of what my mother wrote:

December 28, 1989 is a day I will never forget, because it changed the lives of our family members, and changed our future in ways we couldn’t foresee.  This is the story of the accident.  You, Bryan, have asked me to write this story, and it is a story you deserve to know.  You were too little to remember the accident, but it has impacted your life ever since that day.

Before I tell the story of the accident, let me tell you a little bit about our family, and events that led up to it.  You were the last of six children born into our family, and you were about 7 and ½ months old.  Sarah was 4; Krista was 6; Lee was 9; Kathleen was 11; and Barbara was 13.  You, Bryan, were born that same year, on the morning of May 10, 1989.  I remember the doctor examining you that morning shortly after your birth, and saying, “He’s perfect!  He’s just perfect!”

The four months prior to the accident were very hectic and stressful months.  With six children and a new baby, I had just started a new year of teaching Seminary in September.   The same evening as my first lesson, we got a call from Grandma Bird that Arturas Baranauskas of Lithuania, his Father Algirdas, and Algirdas’sister Irena, were already (without prior notice) on their way to America…. already on the train.  They would be visiting Grandma Bird and us for a whole month.  They would be in Pittsburgh on Friday.  I told Leon’s Mom we would be happy to have them in a couple of weeks…. if they could spend the first 2 weeks in Pittsburgh.

The next day Leon drove to Pittsburgh ahead of the rest of the family so that he could fly to New York and meet the Lithuanians, and fly back with them from New York.  I drove the six children to Pittsburgh.  When I got there, Grandma Bird was exhausted.  I helped her fix her hair and do a few last minute things before going to the airport.  As we were leaving the house, she tripped on the edge of the carpet and fell, breaking her arm.  We immediately called the ambulance, and after she was on her way to the hospital, I went to the airport to greet the Lithuanians.  The first 10 days of their visit, Grandma Bird, the only one of us who could speak Lithuanian, was hospitalized, while the Lithuanians came with us to Tiffin.  This was the beginning of a series of events that preceded the accident.

We spent the next month driving the Lithuanians around and returning to Pittsburgh to assist Leon’s Mother.  But we had children in school, and a business to run, including the Farm Science Review.  It was stressful and challenging.

Towards the end of October, Leon was in Iowa on business, heading to Pittsburgh again to see the Lithuanians off at the end of their month long trip.  Instead of driving to Pittsburgh, he managed to drive himself to the hospital in great  pain.  His back was really hurting, and as it turned out, he had blood poisoning, or Septicemia, which is very serious, sometimes fatal.
Leon spent a few days in a hospital near Chicago, and although they were willing to release him, he was too sick and in too much pain to drive home.  I took 5 month old Bryan on a Greyhound bus to Gary, Indiana, then walked to the hospital where Leon was, and then drove Leon home in his car.  With great difficulty we got Leon into the house, to a bedroom on ground level.  The next day Leon tried to make it into the bathroom.  It took him about three hours to crawl into the bathroom, and then I made him a bed beside the toilet.  I called the doctor several times concerning Leon’s condition.  Finally, I called the ambulance.  Leon spent another 10 days in the hospital, and came close to dying.  The doctor said he would probably never be that close to death again until he actually does die.

For the next month Leon recuperated in a hospital bed downstairs in the family room.  He was just getting on his feet again when we got a call  saying that Raimundus and Dalia, two more Lithuanians, wanted to come and visit for another month over Christmas.  Leon was just getting over being critically ill.  His mother had also been very sick, and was struggling from the effects of a brain tumor that as yet was undiagnosed.  None of us were ready for another month of company.  Grandma Bird asked them if they could postpone their trip, but they were afraid this would be their only opportunity to come.

A couple of days before Christmas we headed to Pittsburgh again.  With Leon’s Mom being quite ill, I had a lot of responsibility for the Lithuanians.  I had to go Christmas shopping for them, and help with food preparation and cleaning.  Then on Christmas day, Grandma’s brother died.  Two days later, her brother-in-law died.  Grandma Bird needed to help make funeral arrangements for both of them in Pittsburgh, and being ill, needed Leon’s help.  I had a 2-hour long dentist appointment scheduled for Dec. 29th, and at the time, I felt I needed to keep it, since all that time had been set aside for me.  So, on December 28th, I would be traveling to Ohio with six children, without Leon.

The night before, on December 27th, Leon’s mother had hosted a dinner and Christmas party so that the Lithuanians could meet other American family members and Lithuanian friends in Pittsburgh.  Because she was not feeling well, I spent hours cooking and cleaning, and was up very late trying to get the dishes done and everything cleaned up.

Late that night Leon and I were talking about all that had happened in the last few months, and how glad we were that we had survived 1989, and hopefully, our trials for the moment were at an end.  Little did we know that in a few hours, two of our children would be in critical condition.

In the morning I was still asleep when the kids woke me up, telling me they had the car packed and they were ready to leave for home.  I don’t know why they were so eager to be on their way…..

Still feeling very tired, I got dressed , and headed for home with my six children.   As we drove, I perked up, and I was feeling just fine.  However, it was always a struggle driving long distances with a baby.

When I was a kid, we didn’t use seat belts.  In our own family (Leon and I, and our children)  when we drove long distances, we set the car up so the kids could sprawl out and sleep, and be as comfortable as possible.  We were not vigilant in those days about seat belts.  We thought the chances of something happening were slim.  In general, seat belt laws and seat belt use was quite a bit more lax than it is now.   Bryan was strapped in a car seat that was on the floor of the van, where Barbara had been tending to him.  (Please understand, that with respect to seat belts we were uneducated and unwise.  Since the accident, we have been vigilant about seat belts, and will never again make such naive assumptions as we made before…. thinking it couldn’t happen to us, or assuming that the chances of our children being seriously injured were remote.  We made a terrible mistake by not being strict about seat belt use until after the accident.  It is a mistake we will not make again.)

It was after 1:30 p.m. in the afternoon on December 28th.  We were on State Route 113, near Milan, about an hour from home.  One of the kids had just asked me if I was all right.  I said that I was.   I thought that I was.   My eyes drifted shut, and in a few seconds the van was bumping through a field.  I opened my eyes just before the van slammed into a utility pole in front of me.
My left wrist was broken.  The engine of the Van was shoved into my legs.  My left leg was broken at the top near my hip.  The patellar tendon at my knee was severed.  The other leg was cut up as well.  I was pinned against the steering wheel.  In this condition, of course, I could not move or turn around to check on the kids.  It seems like Sarah was crying.  I could not hear Bryan at all.  I asked the children who was hurt.  Nobody was really able to tell me how Bryan was.  He was apparently  lying there motionless…. but we had no idea how seriously hurt he was.  Sarah’s head was bleeding.  I told Barbara to go for help.  She jumped out of the car with no shoes, and was running through the snow trying to flag down a car.  Nobody stopped, so she went to a house and got the people there to call  9-1-1 for help.

After a time an ambulance arrived.  I heard them say that Bryan was definitely a priority.  They took Bryan, Lee,  and Barbara to Providence Hospital in Sandusky in one ambulance.  They took Sarah, Kathleen, and Krista in another ambulance to Fisher-Titus Medical Center in Norwalk.  They called for the jaws of life to cut me out of the car.  I was afraid when they tried to pull the engine away from my leg that my leg would go with it.  Once separated from the car, I was taken to the same hospital as Sarah in Norwalk.  In the emergency room we were talking to each other through a curtain, telling each other “I love you” in Lithuanian, although I was unable to see Sarah.

I obviously didn’t have all of my wits about me or I would have requested I go to the same hospital as my children.  Sarah and Bryan were both life-flighted to Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland… but I didn’t know this at the time.   I was told that there was not an orthopedic surgeon at the hospital in Norwalk, and I was asked where I would like to be taken.  I suggested Tiffin Mercy if there was an orthopedic surgeon in Tiffin.

Many of the details of this period of time immediately after the accident are a blur.  I myself was seriously injured, in shock, and not necessarily thinking clearly.  I was transported to Tiffin, X-rayed, and taken to surgery, where they put pins in my broken elbow, and an external fixator on my left wrist.  I’m sure I was sedated or anesthetized… but I can remember pleading with them to cancel my dentist appointment.  Nobody did that, however.  I would need to have a rod put in my left femur in a later surgery.

[Excerpt from my Dad] I(Leon) was taking the relatives to a restaurant in the North Hills when the manager of the restaurant asked me to get to the phone.   When I answered the phone I was told by my mother that there had been a terrible accident, and that I needed to come to her house right away.  Within an hour my mother was on the road with me and her good friends, the McClaskeys, to the Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital in Cleveland.
At the Cleveland Hospital mother and I and our party  were met by people from the Cleveland East Stake as we learned of the extent of their injuries. My mother got to see  Sarah & Bryan. Then she had to go back to Pittsburgh and  I was left there at the Hospital to be with my 2 youngest children.  I had to be close by to nurture Sarah and  to give consent for any treatment that might be needed.  Friends from the Tiffin Branch brought my car up to the hospital.

Sarah was an alert and sparkling  angel, while Bryan was in the Pediatric NICU in an induced coma with the “accursed”  sign saying no undo stimulation.  It was rough going between one to the other, being up for Sarah, and then being there for Bryan. After 2 days I was able to move into The Ronald McDonald House. At night I walked the streets of East Cleveland crying for my Bryan.  In my anguish the Holy Ghost revealed that there was a purpose for Bryan’s Injury and to take courage.

As Bryan got better in the Hospital I sang Bryan’s song:
Bryan, Bryan you are flying
Bryan, Bryan you are trying
Let you fly
Let you fly, because you try
you  are the Bry…an

At the Hospital I was advised that Bryan was severely injured and may need to be put into a long term care  institution, but  with the revelation I received I knew that it would not be appropriate or necessary.  In the Hospital often when Bryan was allowed to be awake he would have a  seizure.  The doctors put him on Dilantin to control the seizures.  Once he left the hospital he has never had another seizure and is now off of all meds.

One of the biggest problems for Bryan was nutrition. He would not eat enough on his own to sustain his life and had to be fed through a nose tube. At the Hospital I learned how to insert the nose tube.  Bryan needed to consume 30cc a day of formula to survive, but in the hospital he rarely achieved that goal orally.  I was trained in how to insert the nose tube before I could take him home. On his first day home he drank 28cc and I did not have the heart to put the tube in.  On the 2nd day he consumed 32 cc and never had the nose tube inserted again.

With Bryan every day & every week was a miracle of recovery that first year. I know from personal revelation that Bryan is a special young man, and I am pleased to be his father.

I (Bunny) knew very little about what was happening with Bryan and Sarah during this time.  Leon’s Mother visited both hospitals, and shortly thereafter took the Lithuanians back to Pittsburgh.  My Mom and Dad came in from Tennessee to watch the four older children in Tiffin while Leon stayed at the Ronald McDonald House in Cleveland, staying close to Sarah and Bryan.  He visited them through the day, and often walked the streets at night sorrowing for Bryan.  He gave me very little information about Bryan, having concern about my recovery.

Sarah had suffered a skull fracture, and a broken leg.  They put her in an A-frame cast, with both legs in casts and a bar between them.   They had to remove skull fragments from brain tissue, and with the bone, about 20% of her right frontal lobe.  Among the concerns was that this might affect her personality; however, within a few days, Sarah was happy, and her sparkling personality was manifest.  There were some sisters in the local ward in Cleveland that looked in on her and pampered her, brushed her hair and brought her a doll.  Sarah, apparently, had a pretty good time with all of the attention.  I spoke to her on the phone each day, and it seemed that Sarah was going to recover very well.

Leon told me that Bryan’s head had been very swollen, perhaps to twice its normal size.  There was a sign near him that he was not to be stimulated.  Bryan was in an induced coma to keep the swelling down.  Early in January they would operate and put in a “Ventricular-peritineal shunt” to drain the fluid and reduce the swelling in his brain.

It was about a week or so following the accident before I learned that Bryan was in critical condition, and that he might not survive.  From the time of the accident, I had made the naive assumption that in a few weeks, everyone would be fine and whole, and we would go back to life as it was before.  Learning that Bryan was in critical condition was very overwhelming.  The thought that I had caused this great harm to come upon my baby boy was horrifying.  I thought that if he didn’t make it, I didn’t want to make it either…. how could I live with myself?  Feeling more sorrow and anxiety than I could bear, I requested a priesthood blessing, which did help me to be more calm.  Day after day as I lay in the hospital, I frequently studied the pictures of my six children which were lined up on the window sill in my room.  Over Bryan’s picture was a picture of the Christus, or Jesus Christ, with his arms outstretched.   The image was always there in my head every day, that Bryan was in His hands.  I was pretty helpless, myself.  There was nothing I could do for Bryan except pray.  As the days went by, I felt confident about Bryan being in His hands, and felt trust in Heavenly Father, that Bryan was indeed in good hands.

After 3 weeks in Tiffin Mercy Hospital, I was transferred to a rehab hospital in Green Springs for Therapy.  Mom and Dad continued to watch the children at home, only now Sarah, with her a-frame cast and partially shaved head, was at home as well.  She was learning to drag herself around on her tummy; but much of the time she watched Disney movies, especially the Little Mermaid.  My parents weren’t accustomed to tending five children, all day long every day, and I know this was a stressful time for them.  They visited me almost daily at the hospital.  At home, my Mom was trying to prepare the children to take over the household duties, because she was fearing I might not walk again.  I had no such fears….. such a thing had never occurred to me.   

Towards the end of January, Leon was feeling very encouraged about the improvement in Bryan’s condition.  He thought it was time that I come up to Cleveland and see Bryan for the first time since the accident, and made arrangements for me to leave the rehab hospital for an evening.

Getting in the car for the first time, my left leg felt like it weighed a thousand pounds…. Leon drove me to Cleveland, and I saw my chunky little baby boy for the first time.  I had looked at his picture in my window so much, that I think I expected to see him like he was in the picture.  I wasn’t prepared to see a baby who couldn’t smile.  A baby who couldn’t cry, because he was too weak.  He just made little groaning sounds now and then.  It was impossible to tell if he recognized me.  He looked, and stared, but there was no other response.  He couldn’t hold his head up.  His neck had no muscle tone.  This was the first time I began to comprehend a little bit about what Bryan had been through.  I had no real idea how injured he had been.  I had never understood that Bryan might not heal completely, or that the journey back to health might be a very long one.   I began to sob.  Leon told me I shouldn’t cry around Bryan.  I had to leave his room for a while and cry a lot, and weep, and mourn, and prepare myself to come back and hold Bryan with a composed smile.   Eventually, I was able to pull myself together, and return to Bryan’s room.  I held him, and talked to him, and sang to him.  He stared at me, but moved very little.  On one hand, it was wonderful to see my little baby boy again.  On the other hand, my mind was now open to terrifying possibilities.  I didn’t know what Bryan’s future would be.  I had never imagined before this day that Bryan might not be made whole.  Once again, I was very overwhelmed with a different sorrow….

The following day at the rehab hospital I just cried all day long.  The nurses at the hospital wondered if I needed to see a psychologist or mental health professional.  I said no….  they couldn’t fix this.  I listened to my uplifting music, and I prayed.  I remember one kind nurse reassuring me that Bryan was still Bryan, still my precious little boy.  I appreciated her kind words. As I prayed for Bryan, eventually I received this impression from the spirit, which was not only what I needed then, but it has sustained me since then.  The spirit impressed upon me that Bryan still had a purpose on this earth; a mission to fulfill, and that he would grow in mind and body to fulfill his life’s mission.  Knowing that Heavenly Father was still in charge, and Bryan was still in His hands, and that Heavenly Father still had a mission for Bryan that wasn’t halted by the accident, and that He still loved me enough to comfort me, made it possible to go forward with hope, and not despair.

A few days after seeing Bryan, Leon and I were having discussions about where Bryan should go for rehab.  The hospital where I was receiving physical and occupational therapy was an adult hospital.  There were no children at the facility.  There were far away facilities that specialized in rehab for children and babies.  But an important part of rehab was also the bonding between the child and his parents, the emotional rehab.  I so wanted to be able to be near my baby boy again, and help take care of him.  We decided that if the hospital in Greensprings would take Bryan, that he should be there with me, giving us time to be together.  They agreed to take Bryan…. and he was the first baby to be there in many years.  They had to get a baby bed in there and special equipment they didn’t have.  On February 6, Bryan joined me in Greensprings.  It had only been about a week since I had last seen him, and he was already doing significantly better.  He still had to be fed through a nose tube, however, and he was still very weak.

Leon and I would say…. if only he could smile…. and then, he did smile.  One little step at a time.   Then we would say…”If only he could eat enough that he didn’t have to have this tube going through his nose to his stomach…”   The day Bryan was released from the hospital in Green Springs is the last day he needed that tube.  He did improve; he did get stronger.  His neck got its muscle tone back, and he was able to hold his head up.  When my parents visited us at the rehab hospital, it made them laugh to see Bryan in his walker, scooting around all of these old people (mostly elderly people who were recovering from strokes).  He just looked very out of place there.

I’m not sure Bryan received the very best physical therapy he could have received at Green Springs.  The therapists were not accustomed to working with babies, and they honestly weren’t all that well equipped.  But it was a wonderful reunion for mother and son, and we enjoyed some very good emotional rehab.   I loved being able to hold him, bathe him, and sing to him, and it made our remaining time there go so much faster.

We were both released on February 23rd to go home, although the hospital had recommended that I could use more therapy.  My Mom and Dad had been away from their home for almost two months, and needed to get back.  Leon had a business that had been neglected for 2 months.  Bryan and I could live at home and continue to receive out-patient therapy.  Because I was still unable to walk or carry a baby with my broken bones, we had a home health nurse come in every day to help with some of the tasks around home and help with Bryan and Sarah until I was able to do more.