Scary Night

All: last night was a scary night. Dennis was excited about going to the climbing wall with the boy scouts, which he has done several times before. But, last night was different. He left the house around 7:00 pm and was home at 8:15 pm. I knew that something had to be wrong. Well, it was! He was in extreme pain, his face was white as a ghost. I ask him what was wrong and he began to tell me what had happen. I immediately put him in the car and off to the hospital we went.

While at the climbing gym one of the older scouts was belaying (can't spell) him down from the top of the tallest wall, around 30 - 35 feet high, and instead of hitting the brakes on the ropes, he tried to grasp it with his hands, and Dennis fell somewhere between 20 - 25 feet to the ground. He hit a 2 x 4 on the ground and was in extreme pain. At the hospital after lots of x-rays, pain medication it was discovered that he had fractured (cracked) the L2 vertebrae in his back. We were told that the only thing they could do was give him pain medication and to keep moving so he wouldn't stiffen up.

We arrived back home around 1:00 am on Wednesday. Dennis went straight bed, however, the pain was pretty bad so he took another pain pill around 3:00 am and another at 8:45 am. I picked up his med's at the pharmacy around 9:30 am and took them home - he was trying to sleep, but I could tell that he couldn't get comfortable. He has slept most of the day today. On top of all of that he cut his tongue really bad and has that nice taste in his mouth and can't eat very well. Anyway, this was a really scary night and I hope that he feels better tomorrow, but they told him it would take 4- 6 weeks to heal completely. I will update his progress later.