Hey all! Well, unfortunately this post isn't about our time spent in Rome, as I had originally anticipated... Instead, I figured I'd give you all a head's up on Brian's condition. As many of you have already heard, Brian had a climbing accident on Saturday. Remember when I was saying how jealous I was of him going rock climbing in my last post??? Well, let's just say that I'm not so jealous anymore! :)
Brian and Dominik took a three hour hike back into the mountains where they were planning on climbing. They had just about finished the first part of the climb. Dominik had gotten to the top and had tied himself in and was waiting for Brian. Brian was about 10 meters away from Dominik when he grabbed ahold of a boulder (And apparently this was a HUGE boulder! Taller than Brian and very wide...). Somehow, as Brian was holding onto it, the boulder managed to dislodge itself from the mountain and it fell (with Brian still holding it). Brian let go and fell backwards, but not before the boulder managed to roll over his leg (pinning it between the boulder and the mountain) before it fell the rest of the way to the ground!
At that point, Brian was hanging in the middle of the mountain by the rope and yelled up to Dominik that his leg was broken. Dominik climbed down to where Brian was and managed to get him into a position that stabilized the leg (all the while, he was hanging in mid-air!). They then called for help, and a helicopter arrived about 20 minutes later. Being that there was nowhere for the helicopter to land, they had to lower the doctor down onto a mountain by a rope. He then got Brian ready for the flight and signaled for the helicopter to come back. The doctor then hooked himself to the rope, hooked Brian up to him, and they were lifted up the helicopter. They were then flown (hanging onto the rope) to a point on the mountain where they could land and get Brian loaded into the helicopter... Crazy!
Brian was then flown to the hospital, and after having a few tests, it was determined that he would have to undergo surgery to fix the bones in his leg. This is the point at which I found out about what was going on... lovely! Brian called to tell me what had happened, and he informed me that Dominik had been left by himself on the mountain so that he could carry all of the backpacks and rock climbing gear back to the car, but at that point Brian wasn't sure that he had left his keys with Dominik. This is where things got even more interesting!
Being that I was in Germany and Brian was in Austria, I wanted to get to Austria as quickly as possible! Well, the problem with that was the fact that they had taken the car, so I had no transportation. After calling Dominik to see if he had gotten back to the car, and not getting ahold of him, I then frantically began calling everyone we knew in Germany to see if they could help. After not being able to get ahold of anyone, I tried calling Dominik again. Again, no answer. I then called Domink's girlfriend, Eva, (who at the time was on a ship in the middle of the ocean, with 70 of her students, heading over to England for a field trip...) to see if she had heard from Dominik. When she told me that she hadn't heard from him, we both started to get worried. We weren't sure if he was stranded in the mountains, or if he had even made it down the mountain safely after they took Brian away...
The next few hours consisted of many phone calls! I had managed to get ahold of our landlord, Klaus, and he was on the phone trying to get ahold of the police to see if Dominik had been located. Eva was a nervous wreck not knowing where Dominik was, so she was calling every 15 minutes for updates. I was on the phone with Brian trying to figure out how to get there to see him, and trying to find out what his status was. And then I was also calling my parents and Brian's parents to keep them updated on the situation... Craziness!
We finally heard from Dominik at about 7 p.m. (only about 6 hours later) and he had found the car and was driving back to Friedrichshafen. He hadn't called because as he was climbing down the mountain, his phone had fallen out of his pocket and fell into the rocks, resulting in a very broken phone! :) He finally got back to Friedrichshafen at about 9:30 and dropped the car off for me. By that time, I hadn't been able to get ahold of Brian for a couple of hours (I was assuming he was in surgery), so I had Dominik call the hospital. They informed him that Brian was out of surgery, he was sleeping and doing well, and they told Dominik to tell me not to come until the morning.
So, after a VERY short night (I think I may have dozed off for about 2 hours at the most), I headed out to Austria (with our friends Maike and Norbert) to go see Brian. After about a 2 1/2 hour drive, we finally got to the hospital around 8 a.m. You have no idea how happy I was when I finally got into the hospital room and was able to see Brian sitting there!! He told me that he was feeling pretty good and that they had told him that he leg looked good as well. I had only been there for about an hour when the doctor came in and told Brian that they were concerned because his blood oxygen level was low, so they took him for a chest x-ray. When the results for that came back negative, they then told him that they wanted to take him for a lung CT scan. When those results came back, they came into the room and informed Brian that they were taking him to the ICU because they had found thrombosis in his lungs.... That's where things got really scary!
They came in shortly after that and wheeled him to the ICU. They told me that I could follow but they wouldn't let me to into the room with him until visiting hours started at 1 p.m. Are you kidding me?! That's when I lost it! I had been a worried mess for so long, and after driving for what seemed like forever that morning, I had finally been able to see Brian, only to have them take him away again! To make matters worse, they informed me that visiting hours were only from 1 p.m. - 3 p.m., and 7:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. daily... That's right, only 2 1/2 hours a day... how ridiculous is that?! At that point the tears started coming and I was VERY thankful that Maike and Norbert were there with me to calm me down!
Since I had two hours to wait before I could see Brian, I went with Maike and Norbert to find a place to stay. Being that I don't speak German, the two of them helped me to get a room that's near the hospital and they helped me to get somewhat settled in. They left shortly after that to head back to Friedrichshafen... Needless to say, they were a godsend and I'm so very grateful for them!! After they left, I headed back to the hospital and was able to get in to see Brian a little bit before the visiting hours actually started (they told me that since it was his first day, that they would allow me to stay a little bit longer, but after than I had to abide by the scheduled visiting hours... At least they were willing to work with me a little so I'm thankful for that).
Walking into the ICU was a very scary situation. Their ICU was set up quite differently from the ones I have been to in the U.S. When I walked in, they immediately made me put a plastic apron on and then they instructed me to was my hands with the antiseptic soap. I then walked into the room and saw that they were trying to put an oxygen mask on Brian and he was having a fit! That's when I really panicked!! They wanted him to breath the oxygen so that it would open up his lungs so that it would help get the blood clots (thrombosis) through. After a while, we both managed to calm down a bit and he finally agreed to use the oxygen mask. The time spent in ICU was pretty intense. We were both pretty shaken up and scared about what was taking place.
Thankfully, Brian only had to stay in the ICU for 24 hours. When I went to visit him today, they informed me that he had been transferred to a regular room... yay!! Apparently, his blood oxygen level had improved significantly overnight. I've spent most of the afternoon visiting him and he's looking alot better. Outside of the fact that he can't wait to finally get up and walk! :) They put a cast on his leg this morning and they said that it's looking good, so that's a definite plus! The doctors originally told him that he would be here for 7 - 10 days, but we're hoping that he's able to get out a little bit earlier than that.
Overall, it's been quite a crazy few days! Thank you to everyone for all of your prayers and wishes! They really mean alot to us! It's quite a difficult situation when you're so far away from home, and in a different country when dealing with this type of thing... We're definitely feeling homesick right now! :) I'll keep you posted on Brian's condition... We miss you all very much!!
I'd like to take this time to wish my Mom and Dad a very Happy Anniversary! Today brings back so many memories of all the special moments we've shared as a family... family vacations, Spring Break trips to Florida, camping trips to Cedar Point, days spent outside swimming in the pool and jumping on the trampoline, summer days spent at Ludington beach, shopping trips in Traverse City, and the list could go on and on. 
