Beloved of Christ:
This is John. Some of you know this already, and some of you don't. Joan was involved in a traffic accident about 8:45 this morning. For those of you who know the Topeka area, the accident was at the intersection of CR 600 S and SR 5. Joan was crossing the intersection going westbound when she was struck by a vehicle going north on SR 5. The impact spun our mini-van around, and it struck a vehicle headed eastbound through the same intersection. That second impact caused the mini-van to roll over twice, and come to rest on the driver's side of the car. First responders used the jaws of life on the passenger side of the car to extract Joan, and she was flown to Parkview Hospital in Fort Wayne.
Now to get to the important news: Joan is really doing quite well. She is black and blue over most of the upper half of her body (bruising from the seat belt she was wearing, and two impacts with the steering wheel), and she will have "raccoon eyes" for the next few weeks, as the second impact with the steering wheel bumped her on the nose. She does not have a broken nose, just bruised. She also wound up with a hairline fracture of her left clavicle up near the shoulder joint. But that only hurts when she moves it wrong.
She will be staying at Parkview for 2-3 days for observation. This is due to the fact that she has a concussion, and an attendant small amount of bleeding in her right temporal and frontal lobes (for the non-medical, which is most of us, this area is located in her brain close to directly over the outside part of her right eye socket). However, her neurosurgeon is not particularly concerned about what he saw on the CT scan. He is holding her at Parkview to make sure nothing "goes south" in the next few days.
Joan's only troublesome problem seems to be one common to concussions: She is experiencing short-term memory loss. She told me at least 10 times today to make sure that I send out this Email, and she didn't remember at all my being with her in ICU this afternoon. But after a trauma like hers, especially with the concussion, these sort of things are not uncommon, and will only be a long-term problem is they don't show lessening of symptoms in the next few days. Hence, another reason for keeping her for observation.
Thanks for listening, and thanks to all for the prayers I know that you will be sending to our Lord Jesus Christ. Please feel free to contact me by return Email anytime you want; I will be updating Joan's progress every night by Email.
Christ is risen! Truly, He is risen!
John
