God is good...

Just wanted to update everyone on my last post. The more the story of Trevor's accident unfolded this week, the more we saw God's hand in protecting him. I really want to thank everyone for their prayers over the last week. I believe God heard each one and used them to do something great for Trevor this week.

Just an update on the accident itself. Trevor and his friend John went to the pond Sabbath night to go swimming. One part of the pond is quite deep while other parts are shallow. Trevor thought he remembered where the deep part was but misjudged and dove into the shallow part instead. His friend jumped in (he didn't dive in) right after Trevor and immediately popped up to the surface but it took Trevor a little while to surface. When he finally came to the surface, he yelled out to John and then went back under. John went down to get him and brought him up to the surface for air. He brought him over the bank and Trevor could hardly move. It is a good thing that John was there otherwise, who knows what might have happened.

The update on his injuries include a break at C4 and swelling in his spinal cord. He has no sensation of cold on his left side and still has tingling and numbness in both arms. He can't lift his arms very high either. Thankfully a lot of his pain has subsided and when I saw him yesterday, he hadn't taken any pain medication since the previous day.

Anyway, several of us went to the hospital yesterday morning to see him before he was discharged at noon. All the doctors have been amazed with his progress. They commented that they haven't seen anyone with his type of injuries leave the hospital so soon. They have warned him though that any further damage to the neck could be extremely serious. He will be going home for several weeks to give his neck time to heal and will have to wear a neck brace for nearly 6 weeks.

Here are just a few photos of us at the hospital... I have to explain about the "safety first" creatures. Trevor and John are always begging me to let them blow up something in the laboratory and I always have to caution them to be safe. We always use a slogan in the laboratory called "safety first." I had no idea where that came from until in church on Sabbath the speaker was talking about a chemist whose last name was First. He was always so concerned about being safe that he would wear lab glasses, coat, boots, safety belt, helmet, etc. His fellow associates nicknamed him "Safety First" and that name is now used all the time in the laboratory. So then it became a joke between Trevor and I about "safety first." After this whole pond incident, I thought Trevor needed to be reminded about that more often, so I made him something to always remember it. Also, as a little memento, each of us signed his neck brace... can't say I've ever done that before!

Then one of my other students decided he would try out Trevor's bed. And after all, since we were on the pediatrics floor, he thought a teddy bear and thumb would be a nice addition. (We all laughed when the nurse came in to get Trevor's breakfast tray. She looked right at Jerome in the bed and asked him if he was finished with it. Jerome played right along with it... I wonder if she finally realized he wasn't the one with the neck brace.)

Anyway, that is just the latest update. All in all, we see how God blessed through it all since it could have been much more serious than it was. Thank you again to all those who uplifted him in prayer.