Shift your prayers to Wiley, II

10:30 pm Tuesday post:

Wiley was in a serious skateboarding accident this afternoon. He took a hard fall, fracturing his skull and causing an unknown level of injury to his brain. His cousin Tyler was with him and quickly placed a 911 call, so thanks to Tyler, he got help just as quickly as possible.

Wiley is just coming out of surgery now; the surgeons have "elevated" a piece of his skull to give them access to a blood clot identified by CT (and possibly to alleviate the effects of swelling, though that is a bit fuzzy). The skull piece will remain elevated for 5-6 days. His prognosis is unclear, and I/we really don't know more than that as yet. More info may be available from the surgeon tonight. Wiley's to be admitted to the ICU at Memorial Hospital in Santa Rosa.

Tim and Nancy keep reminding themselves and everyone waiting tense and red-eyed that he is the "butter side up" kid, and they have to trust he will stay true to form.

I'll let you know if there is more information available. Meanwhile, prayers will have to do.

___

That was the 10:30 pm Tuesday post; here's the post-midnight update:

"Critically ill" is the short answer to how Wiley is doing, said his surgeon. He also said he was "confident" about Wiley's recovery, but that there were no guarantees. Yup, just that reassuring. Keep up those prayers.

The surgeon said that he had actually replaced the piece of skull after addressing the clot, as the pressure in Wiley's head was normal. There is a smaller second clot in a different part of the brain that they will keep an eye on; it might possibly intervention later. He'll keep Wiley in a medically-induced coma for a day or two to facilitate recovery and to help keep brain pressure low. Wiley is expected to stay in the ICU for a week or more. No certainties in any of this except the uncertainty of it all.

Tim and Nance will get to check in on Wiley tonight, and Tim is going to stay while Nance heads home for hopefully some sleep so she can be back in the morning.

For those of you who are wondering about these details, Tim fortuitously happened to be working in Sonoma County this afternoon, and was able to get to the ER lickety-split after getting the call from his sister-in-law, Deb. Nancy was unfortunately still on her way out of San Francisco, where a friend had driven her this afternoon for yet another surgeon check-up. So she lagged a bit behind, but at least had a friend behind the wheel -- she is still not feeling up to driving, though the surgeon told her today that she had the green light to do whatever she wanted, that her surgery was healing fine. (Unfortnately, she also told Nance that she seemed to be sick as a result of all the antibiotics and should go see her regular doc to get straightened out. Nance was at least glad to know a reason for why she still felt so bad.)

The mantra: butter side up, butter side up, butter side up....