Sophie's Accident

One week after the accident and Sophie's head is already round again.

Photos at the time of her release from Primary Children's Medical Center, two days after the accident.



Sophie's tender torpedo head.

A Happy Ending---four weeks out and we're officially healed.

On March 12, 2011 I was helping Randy Hoffman with some Danish genealogy questions in my parent's front room. I had tried for an hour to put Sophie down to sleep and she was having trouble relaxing, so Papa took over when Randy arrived. At about 2pm, I saw Dad coming down the stairs with Sophie wrapped in her blue blanket and then all of a sudden I saw him tip forward and come crashing down. I could not see the impact because the coat rack was in the way. I heard Dad swear but I didn't hear Sophie cry. I thought for an instant that maybe she hadn't been in his arms. Maybe he had only been carrying the blanket. I ran to her and took her out of Dad's arms. She was purple and staring. Her body was rigid like she needed to cry but could not. Her head was horribly deformed, with two horn-like growing sacs of blood protruding from the back. I commanded “Breathe, Baby! Breathe, Baby!!!” and Sophie gasped and began to scream after about twenty seconds. I said to Dad, “What do I do?” and he said, “ER—now!” I slipped on my church shoes that were by the door and jumped in the truck with Adam and Dad. I didn't put a seat-belt on. Adam was nearly in tears and I told him to pray out loud over Sophie while I tried to comfort her in the front seat. We came in through the doctor's entrance straight to the CT room. Dad had called Juan and told him he was bringing in a head trauma emergency right then. I had to undress her and I didn't know how to get the sweater and onesie off over that head. The nurse helped me hold the shirt open so I could gently get it off her. The CT tech was too heavy to keep her apron on or to stand leaning forward, so I got an apron and was told to keep Sophie still. I rubbed her arm and chest and sang Princess songs to keep her still. She was whimpering and frightened so the nurses found a sucker for her, but it was one of those Soothies that are a weird shape and it made Sophie even more miserable. Dad and Adam watched the images come in and I saw them blanch. Dad pulled us into the hall so that we would not hear her scream while they intubated her (this involves sticking a tube down into her lungs, so that when she stopped breathing they could force air in). He explained that there was internal bleeding to a dangerous level along with the fractures. We went back to her and found that Dr. Cash had told the ER crew not to intubate her. She had another CT ten minutes after the first one to measure the bleeding's rate of expansion and it was high. The ER doctor said we needed to be life-flighted to Primary Children's Hospital. At this point Sophie's eyes were 'locked' to one side, a strong sign of a serious seizure. I asked Adam to find oil to bless Sophie. Adam anointed and Dad blessed her to slow her bleeding and to make a full recovery. Adam said, “If only one flies, Laurel, it's you.” I was grateful beyond words. I felt like I needed to be with her more than anything. They said only one of us could go, so Dad and Adam went home to pack for all of us and to meet me at the hospital in Utah. I stayed with Sophie and soothed her with songs while they put in IV's and took vitals. I hoped that Adam would think to get her regular sucker but I thought maybe we'd need to buy one in Salt Lake. He was extremely distressed. I felt like Sophie needed me to seem confident and composed. She wanted me to sing to her and would quiet down some when I did although she wasn't able to look at me with her eyes locked to one side. I thought there was a good possibility that she had been blinded. Dr. Scott Smith her pediatrician arrived and stood with me. When the life-flight crew decided they needed to put her in a car-seat for FAA regulations, Dr. Smith told the nurses to fetch gel pillows from the NICU to cushion Sophie's head. The team obviously didn't know how to handle a baby. I was the only one who knew how the car-seat buckled. We were going in a fixed wing propeller-driven airplane because it would get us there thirty minutes faster than the helicopter. It felt like it took them forever to get her strapped in. I was nervous that the delay might mean life or death although I was trying very hard to remain composed. I felt like if I started to cry I would never ever stop. The pilot asked me if I ever got motion sick and I lied and said I'd be fine because I just wanted to get Sophie down to Salt Lake. I knew I could over come any nausea—probably. The ambulance to the Idaho Falls airport did not use sirens and I felt like the guy was going a bit too leisurely. I was anxious to get to Primary's where I would feel more confident that they knew what they were doing. Sophie didn't like the life-flight nurse Tammy because she was brassy and had a perfume on—Sophie never likes scents. Seeing her annoyed at something so normal gave me hope. The plane was significantly smaller than I had imagined. I sat with some baggage and four other people were crammed in too (including the pilot). He took off super fast and Sophie did not respond to the pressure change. The nurses started scrambling to check her out because she seemed a bit non-responsive, but then she started whimpering again and it was fine. I couldn't see her beyond the IV stuff but the nurse told me she was watching the clouds go by and seemed to be resting well enough with a blanket she had been given on the plane. The nurse asked me how pale Sophie normally was and took a hematocrit (blood count) which was a bit low but still okay. They had forgotten to bring a measuring tape to keep track of the edema, so I said, “Why don't you use some string or something?” They cut a restraint band and measured with that. We made a very rapid descent into Salt Lake City, landing on the take-off runway with a medical priority clearance. We pulled up to where the flashy businessmen had their private planes and I noticed that nearly every plane had an expensive looking blonde woman waiting to climb up inside. I thought it was funny that they all had blonde daughters for a moment before I realized those were girlfriends. When the life-flight nurses tried to take a pink bear blanket back, Sophie scowled at them and clung tighter to it so they let her keep it. We were met by an ambulance and this time they used the siren and lights and they drove very fast. I was appalled at the number of people who didn't care and wouldn't move over. The ambulance driver almost hit a lady in a red Honda Civic that was just ignoring him and wouldn't clear the lane. I looked at her as we went by and saw that her passengers were all screaming at her and she looked dazed. For a moment I thought maybe she didn't know to move because there were different rules in South America but Adam told me later that he believes that moving over is the rule everywhere. The roads were in terrible condition and the ambulance driver kept having to swerve to try to miss the larger pot holes so that Sophie wouldn't be jostled. We arrived and entered Primary's through unmarked door to the trauma ER. They separated me from Sophie while a triage team of doctors and nurses swarmed her to figure out what was going on. I was put in a chair in the hallway outside the frosted glass sliding door blocking me from Sophie. A policeman with a silly young man's van dyke guarded the door and frowned at me. A social worker had me tell the story of the accident a few times, stopping me to ask for times and places and taking notes. I realized they thought this might be abuse and I felt a wave of panic that they might not let me back in to see Sophie if they didn't believe me. I started to feel very faint. The social worker said that a woman claiming to be my grandmother had arrived and wanted to see me. I asked if he meant Virginia Sargent and he said, “I didn't get her name, but she's a very austere woman—perhaps she was formerly a school principle?” I almost laughed then and confirmed that that was Grandma alright. She was escorted back to me and the social worker and policeman seemed unwilling to question me further with Grandma giving them the baleful glare. They let me back in with Sophie and I saw that she was in a blue and white cervical spine collar. They had started calling her ZZZ CstepMiami on her tags and charts as a child abuse code to protect her real identity. Sophie looked very bad. She was still not moving her eyes around much and her eyes looked pink. Her body was limp and very pale looking (even for her). The nurse saw me looking her over and joked that I'm a good indication that maybe she's always that pale. We had our third CT with me and Grandma in aprons and me standing and singing and rubbing again. We went back to the trauma bay to meet Dr. Bolo, he's on crutches from a skiing injury and says he's a pediatric neurosurgeon. Our head doctor was Dr. Downey from trauma, but we only saw him twice briefly in the whole visit. Dr. Bolo looked through the films with me and explained we needed the night to watch for seizures or further deterioration. He said that it looked like her dural venous sinuses were “compromised" in the injury and there were three or four skull fractures. He explained that he did not want to operate to relieve the pressure on her cerebellum because the likelihood was that she would bleed out and die, but if the bleeding kept putting pressure on her cerebellum, it would prevent her from breathing and she might die anyway. We'd just have to wait. From that point on no one is sure if the parietal fracture is on the left or right (not that it really matters) but she prefers to lie on her right side and I think I see a bruise for it on the left. I can't imagine why she would lie on the fracture. Since her eyes are still locked to the right, they think this might be a form of seizure but it's coming and going and she doesn't have any limb movement impairments so then again it might not be a seizure. Dr. Bolo left and Grandma insisted they give me cheese and crackers, she had some too. Then it was time to move Sophie to the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit). I followed her up to the PICU where a crew of nurses explained they will be watching her and bugging her with flashlights all night to make sure she's okay and that she cannot nurse in case she aspirates any and gets pneumonia. They give me a pump and show me where I can use their machine to relieve the milk pressure. I say I don't want to leave her and hope I can just absorb the extra milk. The baby across the bay from us is failing, as is the one to our left who also has RSV. There are curtains, but the floor is mostly open so the nurses can move quickly. The only place without cords, plugs and the collar is her chest and the top of her head which I rub to help her fall asleep while I sing some more. I'm hoarse. Her oxygen level continues to drop as she pales even more so they give her a canula (nose tube) and I almost lose composure at how absolutely broken she looks. I try to remember that Dad blessed her to recover and that the Holy Spirit is telling me she will survive. I try not to worry that her development will be adversely impacted. Then it is seven o'clock and they make me and Grandma leave for the shift change. I wonder if it's the last time I will see her alive, as she is looking so broken and her lips are white. I can't believe they make parents leave for what might be the last minutes they will have with their children and I'm feeling angry. We run into Adam and Dad at the front desk and they've just arrived. Adam is upset that he can't see Sophie right away. Dad says he's been pleading with heaven for Sophie's life for the past three hours and he looks terribly haggard. I saw him land on his shoulder and I'm worried about whether he's hurt too but he says it's just his ankle and that his wounds are psychological. Mom called Uncle Richard Ferry to come and look at his shoulder later that night. It also turns out that Mom helped Adam pack and that she told him to put in Sophie's sucker as well as panty liners for me. Mom says the Spirit told her I wanted those things and she's very right. The stress makes me menstruate three times over the next two weeks. Grandma reminds us again that she's in charge of making sure we eat so we decide Hire's is the closest place to go. Hire's is usually happy for me and I don't want to wreck it, but I agree to go there. Hans calls and meets us at Hire's, he's just failed a dance competition performance after hearing about Sophie. Everyone talks about the people they've called and Grandma, Dad, Adam, and Hans all pull out cell phones to keep updating people. I get to speak with Claire briefly and she cheerfully assures me that she's having a great time with Hannah and that Hooma's taking good care of her. I go to the bathroom for the first time in the day and I struggle not to start crying because I'm worried I won't ever stop. Grandma is waiting for me when I come out to make sure I'm okay and I just want to finish our dinner so that I can be back with Sophie. We say goodnight to Grandma and go back to the hospital. It's past visiting hours but those don't apply to the PICU so Hans is able to see Sophie along with Adam, Dad and I. Adam gives Sophie the “right” sucker from home as soon as we see her. She looks extremely relieved and relaxes to sleep. Hans goes home to Provo and after a while Dad goes to Grandma's house to sleep. I take the nurses up on the offer of a breast pump as I'm in some amount of pain by then. I have to wait a long time for the pump room to be vacated. I can hear the mother in there trimming her nails and smacking gum. When she finally leaves, I express more than 12 ounces from my left side---Sophie stopped nursing on the right two months ago and it has all but stopped producing. The pump is the first one I've ever come across that hasn't hurt to use. I know I can't feed Sophie because if they need to do emergency surgery she might vomit into the breathing tube and develop pneumonia, but she's so scared and sad and I want to feed her more than anything. They do let me hold her even though she's attached to dual IV's, vitals electrodes, blood pressure cuff, O2 monitor, oxygen canula and still wearing the c-collar. They've also put a musical mobile on her crib that's playing a little Beethoven's 7^th riff again and again. Sophie likes that and eventually goes to sleep. I want to sleep in the chair next to her but Adam reminds me it will be a long day tomorrow and there's nothing I can do for her in the night. The nurse Melissa has a rolling desk that she's pushed up next to Sophie so that she can be watched for seizure activity at all times. Adam and I retire to the parents' PICU dorm. It is dim, even the cichlids have gone to bed, although there's one father watching a horror movie on the TV in the corner. The dorm is a sectioned hallway that acts as an alternate entrance to the PICU so people are coming and going all night. Some parents are sleeping on the ground, some on the couches. We're one of the lucky five couples to have a twin bed assigned. It's in a small room with a locking door and three black and white pictures of children in adults' clothes. The room is clean and warm and we stack our coats on the one chair. Adam goes to make more phone calls while I dry brush my teeth and take my make up off. I see that Mom has helped Adam pack everything we need, although I don't have pajamas. I don't want them anyway since I'm expecting a nurse to come and get me at any time. The bed is smaller than a twin, like a camp cot, but it's very soft and the blanket is warm. I roll up Adam's fluffy green parka for a pillow and kneel to pray for the night. I can hear people crying. Adam is still out calling, and here is where I break down. I try to give all the pain of the day to the Lord but I am having trouble letting go of my fear. The salt in my tears stings my tired eyes and my nose begins to bleed. I continue to beg for Sophie's survival and the easement of her pain, also that Claire will be comforted back in Idaho Falls while I can't be with her and that Adam can find peace. Pain and panic are just overwhelming me and the guilt of my frustration with the girls over the previous days as Claire has been potty-training is almost more than I can take. I am acutely aware that after a very long and difficult day in a moment of weakness three days before I had actually wished that I wasn't a mother, that I could go back to the easy rewards of being a highly paid, widely respected academic. I plead with Heavenly Father to supplement my being with the Holy Ghost because I know I'm not strong enough to navigate this alone. I feel angry at myself sometimes for feeling dramatic, sometimes for not being emotional enough. I'm feeling faint and drained by the time I close my prayer but the Spirit brings a strong remembrance of Dad's blessing to Sophie in the ER—that she would have her damage minimized and would experience a full recovery. It certainly did not look like that was possible when I left her, but I cling to my hope and fall asleep on my side so that Adam can fit on the bed when he comes in. We usually spread out on our bed, but that night we slept clinging to each other. He set the alarm on the cell phone to get us up at 7am so that we wouldn't miss the morning CT that would tell us where Sophie stood for surgery. I worry that since it's Daylight Saving Time we'll be off an hour, but the phone updates itself in the night. We wake up and hurry to get ready. Not many other parents are awake yet and I realize that it's finally quiet in the dorm. All night there was a haunting background noise of quiet sobbing from the rooms and corners. We try to give a hopeful smile to another pair of parents that are new and who look completely stricken. The father just stares at us while his wife cries into his shoulder. Maybe it is too late for them. When we get to the PICU, we can't go in because of a shift change, so we go to another floor for me to find a pump room. I bring out a glass of water for Adam and he's on the phone again but we walk to the PICU doors and try the phone that opens them. Adam tells me that while I was pumping, the nurses called him and said the CT was already done. In the night, Sophie's blood loss got to a very low level, a Hct 20, so they expedited the CT. I'm angry that they didn't call me but Adam points out they knew how exhausted we were. I wonder if she cried because I wasn't there to sing while she went into the tube. We see Sophie and she is limp and more pale than I've ever seen her, but she looks up at us and there's finally recognition there. The nurse tells us she's ordered a blood transfusion for Sophie and that Dr. Bolo is on his way to tell us the results of the CT. The nurse also says that Sophie smiled at her in the night, which I take as a tremendous sign that her personality might be intact. Dr. Bolo is smiling when he sees us. He says the CT is like looking at a different patient. The dural venous sinuses are now intact and the blood mass has decreased considerably. Sophie doesn't need the c-collar any more and there are no other injuries on her body. Dr. Bolo takes her collar off and says I am free to nurse her. The nurse asks if I want her to draw the curtain, but I'm already trying to snap Sophie on! Sophie's mouth is very dry and she's still weak from the blood loss. She feels very light and limp. She's also very sticky from the glucose they've been giving her to calm her down. The nurse starts some morphine for her now that she can have pain medicine and Sophie commences to nurse for an hour. They ask me to keep track of how much she eats so that they can make sure she stays hydrated but I can feel that she's getting plenty of milk and now I am certain that she's going to progress toward a good outcome. Dad shows up and hears the good news and says he needs to check on a patient of his that he ran into in the hall. When he comes back it's clear he's also been praying in gratitude. Adam has us kneel to thank the Lord out loud. Dad comes back with a roll and cup of water. Bishop Hafen gave him permission to give us the sacrament. We had missed the hospital sacrament because we were talking to the doctor. Sophie continues to nurse and doze and we wait for the blood to arrive to start her transfusion. We also find out that we don't need to be in the PICU anymore. Dad sent us to lunch in the cafeteria and told us that Grandma had offered to make dinner for us. The lunch tastes like food from Maxim's of Paris—probably out of relief. I saw a little guy hooked up to an IV tree having ice cream with his dad. When his dad went to throw away their garbage, a woman at a neighboring table with eyes red from crying went over to the boy and told him her iTouch could play cartoons if he wanted. He was delighted and thought it was totally magic. The woman felt better for helping and the boy's dad was grateful too. They wished her luck with her baby. I noticed parents all over the cafeteria sitting together, making friends, comforting one another. I also ran into two nurses whom I went to Sandcreek Middle School with. Even the decorations seemed friendlier and brighter once we knew Sophie was going to pull through nicely. We returned to Sophie and I felt grateful to the hero who donated blood to her. Once her transfusion was hooked up, we were transferred to the NICU, which later turned out to be a mistake owing to the overcrowding and RSV problems on the regular recovery floor. Nurse Laurel in the NICU suspects we are in the wrong place and calls the trauma nurse practitioners who are taking care of us. NP Amy fixes our nursing orders and we go to the Neuroscience Trauma Unit where Sophie has her own room with a door, a bed for Adam and I and a bathroom. She even has her own X-box! The nurses here are specialized for teaching us about Sophie's rehab and care. We're told by Nurse Jing that if she does well over night in the NTU we'll be sent home around noon tomorrow. After the transfusion, Sophie's lips and cheeks turn pink again. She sits up on Adam's knee and turns her head to look around. Her head is tremendously swollen with the IV fluids and misshapen with the skull fractures but it isn't discolored at all (that came a week and a half later). The NP explains that an edema that size sometimes never changes colors but it will change textures and it will go down in size over time. We are warned about Sophie's possible concussion and told that she should do everything possible to avoid ever getting another concussion as the effects are cumulative. No contact sports for Sophie. It seems unreal to have a limit placed on her life before she has even demonstrated preferences and talents, but I'd of course prefer this limit to what she potentially could have had. They also told us to keep her as calm and rested as possible for the next six weeks while the skull heals back up. Dad came to hold her while we went to dinner at Grandma's house. I was glad because I hadn't wanted to leave her because she was coming more awake and in the NTU there isn't a nurse always with her. We took Dad's truck to Grandma's house. I was so happy to see it raining and making the earth smell springy and fresh. Hyacinth and crocuses were growing in Grandma's yard. We met her new cat Lavender for the first time and were happy to see that she's a good companion cat for Grandma. Grandma made our college favorite, teriyaki lake trout with wild rice and garden salad. She said that earlier in the week she had randomly been with her friend at Costco and had seen the trout but wasn't going to buy it because it was too big for one person. Her friend Esther convinced her to buy it anyway and so she ended up having what she needed for making us dinner. She even made cookies for us and packed a little tin of them to take back with us to the hospital. I finally had relief from the faint dizziness after eating with her. I also checked on Chris' lizard Esmeralda and she looked good. I made a note to myself to let Elder Chris know in my next letter. With the disaster in Japan and Sophie's accident, I imagine he got quite the letters that Sunday night from every one. We returned to Sophie and settled in for the night, on our sides to share space again. I spent the majority of the night in the rocking chair with Sophie though since she was then alert enough to be hungry and to want comforting through the pains and the startling alarms on the vitals monitors. She kept cricketing her legs and knocking off the O2 monitor and the blood pressure cuff which would set the alarms going. She wanted me to bundle her in her blue lovey but the cords prevented it so I tried to tuck it around her. The doctors told us that the blue lovey that Hooma made was probably what protected her body from additional injury in the fall since she was wrapped in it for nap-time. By the nighttime I felt so much better about her condition that I was able to joke and laugh again. When yet another nurse came on duty and asked what Sophie's real name was, we told her it really was ZZZ and she was a rap star. She did well through the night, although she didn't sleep much. I knew her personality and learning were intact when she called me “Mama” and sang Ariel's Aria like she does in the grocery store with Claire. In the morning, her Hct was 38 and we were cleared to go home. Her head looked lots better too and Adam took some pictures with Dad's phone. Sophie was “talking” up a storm to the nurses and to us. We got instructions for caring for her at home and we were amazed that she only needed Tylenol by that point. We tried to find someone to give Sophie's Medicaid number to, but they told us that at Primary Children's Hospital, you don't need to worry about the bills and they work it out later. We were shocked in comparison with the way EIRMC always treats us like criminals. After loading up and thanking the nurses we stopped by Grandma's house to say goodbye and thank you. Grandma was getting over a cold so she couldn't touch or kiss Sophie and Grandma was sorry about that but she cooed and laughed with Sophie in the car-seat. Sophie smiled at Lavender and then we hopped in the truck to drive back home. Dad and Adam called people on their phones to let them know we had escaped from the hospital and Sophie and I slept most of the way home. As soon as we came in the door, Claire let me know that I was in big trouble for having left without telling her and she started jumping and screaming. I was worried that I'd have to take Sophie to Pocatello in order to comply with the concussion order to keep her calm and quiet, but over the next few hours Claire calmed back down. She was such a big girl and she still used the potty even though I was gone! She earned a Barbie with all of her work over the weekend. The next day, I took Sophie to the pediatrician, Dr. Smith who began to weep when he entered the room. He said he never thought he'd see her looking so well and certainly not so soon. He said he had another patient, a nine day old baby, who had also had a fall and was not doing as well as Sophie. We went back three times to have her head circumference measured and it stayed steady so on the last time (which was also Sophie's six month regular check up complete with shots) he said we didn't have to come back until June. I was so proud of her progress and grateful again for this miracle. A social worker from the Idaho Infant-Toddler Program called me and said Sophie needed to be evaluated in a home visit to make sure she was recovering correctly from her “traumatic brain injury.” I was surprised to hear it classified that way and I agreed to the visit. I realized that they were also once again checking to make sure this was not the result of child abuse. I was also willing to do whatever paperwork they wanted since they are connected to the Idaho Medicaid and they were paying all of the bills. The ambulance ride in Salt Lake alone was nearly $2,000. It would have been an astronomical financial burden. There was an avalanche of well wishes and promises for prayers and fasts waiting for me in my inbox and on Facebook when I got back to Idaho Falls. We kept Sophie home from church while the concussion healed but it was wonderful to have so many people wanting to know how she was and caring for her. The Vances brought over a lemon cake and made her a beautiful pink and purple quilt which she loved so much that I let her cheat on the doctor's orders by allowing her to crawl around on it. I also found out that Connie Brundage had made dinner for our family the Sunday we were at Primary's. She sent over enough so that on Monday night we still had a dinner we could easily pull out. Kristen Pearson and her family had tried to see us at Primary's on Monday but we were already released. Kristen bought Goldfish crackers for the girls and gave them to Mom the next Sunday which delighted Claire. All of that love and care was so wonderful. I feel like I need to testify that Heavenly Father spared my baby at every opportunity so that He will know I am eternally grateful. May I never forget His mercy; because there is nothing I could have done to have deserved such a miracle, this was purely a gift of love and grace.