My Fortunate DAD!

This last week was pretty eventful. My dad got kicked in the face on Tuesday (the day before Xmas Eve) by a horse, while he was feeding. He doesnt remember getting kicked, but only remembers waking up on the ground in the snow with the dog licking his head. He walked in the house; and told my step mom that he thought he had been kicked; and i guess he had blood running down his face and his shirt was covered... so she loaded him up to take him to the ER. He went to AF Hospital, and they just stitched him up, and thought that would be good; but his face kept swelling bigger and bigger; so they did Xray's and found out that there was broken bones, and that they would need to go to the ER down at Utah Valley Hospital in Provo. So they got him down there; and the plastic surgeon did more Xray's to determine what they needed to do. The whole lining(bones) around the underneath side of his eye had been busted out/shattered, and around the corner of his eye had been nearly shattered and was pushed back into his head. They took him in for plastic surgery, and told us that it was only a 10 minute surgery... so we waited patiently for him to get done, 2 hours past, and we still had not heard anything... Finally some lady who knew nothing came out and told us that he was just barley going back... so 3 hours passed and finally the Dr came out and told us that it was worse then he thought, but he got it fixed, and all should be well. Because the bone under his eye broke, his sinuses were filling up with blood which was what was causing the swelling. The Dr could not reconstruct the existing bone in there because it was so bad, they had to put titanium plates in there to "recontruct his face". They had to put a big long stitch from the top of his eyebrow down to the bottom of his eye to hold his muscles up, so when it heals his face will not be droopy, and look like he had a stroke. They let him go that same night; becuase his swelling had gone down quite a bit. We were all bawling, if you can imagine, 5 girls, and a step mom bawling ... that is not very fun. We were so grateful that this was healable, and that he is getting better, and he was able to be home with us on Christmas. On Christmas day, his face was still numb; so they called the Dr, and he said that his face will stay numb for 2-3 weeks... so he is pretty pain free, and can not feel anything still. He said that his nose, and teeth are still numb.. so i guess that is good. Otherwise he would be in ALOT of pain i am sure.
We are VERY fortunate that it kicked him where it did, and not in the temple, or even right in the eye, and made him blind, since his occuption requires his vision.


This was a picture of him before he went to the Provo Hospital to be "reconstructed". This was after they did his stitches, while waiting for the Xrays to come back. This was after his surgery, if you look close you can see his stitch from the top to the bottom of his eye.. pretty gross.

Im so greatful that he is still alive and able to recover... we all thought about the worst thing that could happen, and are VERY grateful that it really did not happen. We would all be broke and lost with out him.