1st Post

Hi everybody. Thought I'd try out a blog as a means of information dissemination about Karen and the aftermath of her accident. Please leave well wishes, suggestions, notes of good cheer, etc in the comments. Call it a one stop shop for Karen support.

For anyone that hasn't heard the details here we go:

We arrived in Maui saturday afternoon and checked into our condo, did some shopping and generally chilled for the evening and then went to bed about 8pm. We all got up early the next morning (Sunday) and had breakfast. After breakfast Karen decided to go for a run and her Mom and I went to the pool with Riley. After a while at the pool, a police officer came by and asked for me, and told me there had been an accident....

The road she went for a run on was a two lane road, narrow at points, that runs in front of our resort. She had turned around and was almost back to the resort when she came upon a spot in the road where the sidewalk ended. She was trying to get over to the left as far as she could when she saw an SUV coming at her behaving a bit erratically. So she tried to get even further over to the left. The SUV swerved to miss her, but the Nissan Frontier pickup that was tailgating him did not. She was hit by the right front bumper of the pickup and thrown quite a few feet. The vehicle continued on, but was pursued by witnesses and apprehended soon after. The driver was arrested and charged with DUI (3x legal limit) and hit & run.

Karen was transported to Maui Memorial Medical Center on the other side of the island (50 min drive from where we're staying). Here's the rundown of her injuries. Forgive me if I miss any, there's quite a few:
5 cracked ribs (non-displaced fractures, right side)
Punctured lung
Some cracked vertebra (on the spinal process, a non-threatening area from what we're told)
9 stitches in her left hand
A fracture on the tip of the right shoulder blade
Undetermined knee damage (nothing visible on an xray, but hurts like heck)

The most important thing (outside of the obvious of still being on the right side of the dirt) is that she's still Karen. Notice nothing up there about any head injuries. To the best of my knowledge she never lost consciousness and still remembers everything.

They had to insert a chest tube to reinflate the collapsed area of her lung and the Dr tells me she shouldn't fly for 2 weeks after it comes out. So we'll be here longer than the 7 days we had planned.

As I write this post at 1:26 in the afternoon on Monday, she's in the ICU. I spent the night with her there and probably will tonight as well if she's still there. Her pain is being managed OK it seems. She had one of those button thingys to press for more morphine and this morning she got an epidural to help with the pain from breathing (don't know if she still has the morphine, I'm on Riley duty at the moment) They say she'll have to stay in the hospital for a few days, so maybe Wednesday for discharge?

A word to all you who have sent well wishes via email, text, phone, etc:

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU

This means the world to all of us. I have read all your messages to her or shown her to read herself. Thanks also for your offers of help. Believe me, I'll be contacting you if we need anything.

I'll update as the situation warrants, more often if I can get blogger to work on my iPhone.

Love,
Karen, Riley, Carol, and Joel