On November 23rd, our 23-year-old daughter, Kayrel “Kay” Webb, was involved in a motorcycle accident where she was the passenger. She was wearing a helmet and riding gear. Kay is the mother of one daughter who will be 4 on Dec 21. She is divorced from her daughter's father, and he has primary custody.

When we got the phone call about the accident from the hospital, all we knew was she had bleeding on her brain, multiple broken bones, and she was unconscious when she arrived at the hospital.

When we arrived at the hospital, we learned that her nose was broken, she had 3 bleeds on her brain, and her brain had begun swelling. She needed a ventilator to breathe, and she was being medically sedated to get a proper assessment of her. Her right forearm was broken in several places, and every bone in her right hand was broken. Her right kneecap had just skin holding it on her body. The femoral head of her right leg was shattered and threatened to tear her femoral artery, and the bottom of the femur was also broken near her knee. Both her tibia and fibula on her right leg were broken in several places. She had broken bones in her left hand. There were fractures showing in her left tibia. She had a fracture in her pelvis. Blood draws were showing damage to her heart, but otherwise, her internal organs were fine.

Nov 24: Around 2 am, nearly 24 hours after the accident, the brain bleeds finally stabilized, but the swelling had increased. Around 7 am, the doctors suggested putting a bolt in her head that would monitor the pressure of her brain, and that was done soon after so they could take her to surgery to stabilize her right leg. This surgery took 7 hours. Over the next 24 hours, she needed medication 3 times to help reduce the pressure in her head, but the good thing is the brain bleeding stayed stable.

Nov 25: The medical sedation was removed around 4 am, and by that evening, she had started taking occasional breaths above what the vent was breathing at.

Nov 26: She had surgery to repair her right forearm. It took almost 5 hours, and the surgeon was able to save/repair the memorial tattoo she has on her arm for a very close friend.

Nov 27: She was put on “assistance” mode on the vent, which is where the vent would kick in and breathe for her if her breaths per minute dropped below 12. She was able to breathe without the vent on this mode for 2 hours, and she had the bolt removed.

Nov 28: She was not able to use “assistance” mode to breathe for more than about 1 minute, and the vent had to be turned back on. She was finally able to get an MRI on her brain, and it showed a Grade 1 Diffuse Axonal Injury. The bleeding had stopped, and the swelling was starting to decrease.

Nov 29: We had her moved from a mouth vent to a trach as it was clear she was going to need it longer than the time recommended to have the vent through her mouth. She reflexively opened her eyes a few times.

Nov 30: The respiratory therapist was able to move her from full ventilation to the assistance mode. She reflexively opened her eyes on and off all day and once followed the light when the nurse was checking her eyes.

Dec 1: At about 3:00 PM, she kissed Jody’s hand. This was the first conscious thing she did. Over the next few hours, she drifted in and out and kissed both our hands and even smiled at me, which caused me to notice that there was no movement from the right side of her mouth, so they took her to have a CT scan.

Dec 2: The CT scan showed a narrowing of a blood vessel in her brain that needed further reading to make sure that it wasn’t a stroke. She was more aware and kissed mine and Jody’s hand several times throughout the day. It was obvious that she could not see very far from her face.

Dec 3: She followed me and Jody as we walked in the room and as we went to set our stuff down; otherwise, she slept most of the time. That afternoon, she had surgery to finish the major repairs to her femur. It took about 6 hours.

Dec 4: This was a rough day for Kayrel and a busy day for us. When we arrived at the hospital, Kayrel was terrified of her nurse that day. Her heart rate was extremely high, she was dehydrated, and we were told she had a fever and was being started on an antibiotic. The nurse was not able to draw blood from her to send off to see what kind of infection she had, if she had one. Ortho came and talked to us about her surgery the day before. The surgeon was able to repair her leg to the best of their ability, but Kayrel had a lot of missing bone, and this resulted in them having to shorten her leg some and left her knee unstable as some of the bone that the ligaments in the knee attach to is not there. After it heals, we will know if she will need a knee and hip replacement or any other surgeries for her to be able to walk on her leg again. Neurology also came and talked to us and told us that they do not think that the narrowing of the blood vessel was a stroke, but it was due to the initial trauma from the accident. They wanted to continue to watch it, and the lack of movement in the right side of her mouth was likely due to the impact as well, as they could not see anything on the CT or MRI scans to be a cause of the paralysis. They removed the splint they had on her left leg as they concluded it was an old injury. When she was awake, she would track us walking across the room some, and when we were close to her, she would pull our hands to her mouth and kiss them. We could see that she was at least recognizing something familiar with me and her dad as she didn’t look at us with confusion like she did the nurses. She also showed that she recognized her Aunt C.

Dec 5: She did have an infection in her nose, and she pulled the feeding tube out of it overnight. We met with occupational therapy and speech therapy. Occupational therapy (OT) had seen her on the 4th before we made it to the hospital and had performed what they called a Coma Recovery Scale test on her, and that day she was scoring where she would need the highest level of cognitive rehabilitation. OT sat her up on the side of the bed, but she couldn’t lift her head, and she would not follow any commands or objects. She did make some facial features that led us to think she was responding to music being played. Speech therapy (ST) started working with her to try and get her to breathe through her mouth or nose and not the trach, and she would not even try. She was moved from the severe ICU room to a progressive room. Her brother, grandma, grandpa, and cousins came to visit. At first, she looked at her brother in confusion until he took his hat off, and then you could see that she recognized who he was. As a mother, this was very hard on me, seeing the confusion on her face and the pain on his, seeing his big sister like this and her not knowing who he was. She seemed very confused with her grandparents until she heard them talk, but she still looked at them with confusion. She looked at her middle cousin with recognition, but it was hard to tell if she truly knew who she was, but she did not know who the youngest cousin was, and he is only 4 months older than Kay’s daughter.

Dec 6: There was not much change in Kay. When she was awake, which was not very often, she did seem more alert to her surroundings, and at times she would follow objects further away from her. Her Aunt T, Uncle M, and her cousins came to visit. The only one I could tell she recognized well was her oldest cousin.

Dec 7: Kay appeared confused about everything all day. We could not see that she knew who we were.

Dec 8: Most of the day, she was confused, but she would move her left arm around when it was not restrained (she needed to be restrained to prevent her from accidentally removing tubes). Early evening, she took a small nap, and when she woke up from the nap, she was looking at us with recognition again.

Dec 9: OT came in early and sat her up with assistance on the bed. She could hold her head up some but not for very long. She looked at me immediately when I said her name. This was the first time it didn’t take saying her name numerous times to get her to look at you. We also found out that her insurance would not pay for her to go out of state to rehab. Her Coma Recovery Score had improved some but not very much, but the therapist seemed to sidestep me, so to speak, when I asked for more information about it. We took a class to learn how to take care of the trach when we go home if she has to go home with it.

Dec 10: We were told today that she needs more rehab care than an Arkansas facility will be able to provide, but her insurance is preventing us from going to an out-of-state facility as she has state-funded insurance. She will most likely just have to go home with us without rehab when she is discharged from the hospital, so the hospital is going to start teaching us how to do her medical care. We do not have a timeline on when she will be discharged, but we were told it will not be soon. OT sat her in a chair, and she was in pain the entire time she was in the chair and sat with her head drooped down unless I lifted it. We were told that they will be moving her feeding tube from her nose to a g-tube tomorrow. She would not look at us when we called her name today, and most of the day, she seemed confused. The funds are to be used to help pay for out-of-pocket travel expenses we have to pay to be with our daughter every day.