... and a broken neck

So, good news is that we're home. Jeremy made it through the three hours of twisting roads and loud medical students, through 8 hours of plane flights, and through two seperate 7 hour trips to the ER. We're finally home. Thanks for everyone's help, thoughts, and prayers. My parents are also here helping us navigate the ER visits, picking up prescriptions, and doing other wonderful parent things.

We got into Chapel Hill at 6:15 on Saturday and went to the ER.... where we stayed until 5 am. Jeremy got some CTs done. They showed a fracture in the spinous process of C7 (cervical vertebra 7)... yup, a broken neck. We stayed around to wait for neurosurgery to finish what they were doing (probably save someone's life), and Jeremy wore a cervical collar until they could take some more x-rays and ensure that it was stable.... which it is. They then sent us home. During the CT, he also began having a new pain in the right side of his head.

Jeremy and I slept until 2 pm, and he awoke with a terrible pain in the right side of his head and swelling. It was his worst pain yet, so we brought him back into the ER around 3:30. They took some more CT scans, and the doctor thought that there may be an infection so they gave him some augmentin. We left around 11.

We're going to be back tomorrow for a wound recheck and Tuesday to get his stitches out.

So it looks like Jeremy's count is:
- fractured C7 vertebrae
- 20 stitches in about a 6" arc in the top of his scalp
- 2 stitches in the back of his head
- 1 stitch above his eyebrow
- possible infected scalp stitches
- 1 nasty arm wound that should have been stitched up

However, he did fall 40 feet and hike for 3 hours with a broken neck... thank God it was stable and I still have a husband.