Mat Came Home Today

First off, THANK YOU all for praying, caring and loving our family. It has been a very difficult week. I'll tell you a little of the back story so you can understand where we are today...

Three weeks ago, a Friday night to be exact, we were having a wonderful time visiting with friends from Atlanta. We were playing at Epcot. Mat met us there right after work. It got late, and we went home. Andrew, who usually rides home with Mat, hopped wearily in my car and nearly fell asleep. Lizzy was in the car with me, and we rode home around midnight with Mat following behind me in his car. We were half way home when we (me, a car in front of me and Mat in his car behind me) had to stop for a bus to make a turn. Another bus plowed into Mat's car and send a chain reaction of crashes. It was horrible! Mat immediately went to the ER after walking out of his car nearly untouched, his leg was pounding and slightly bleeding. He seemed pretty ok although he was in shock, and his car was crushed beyond recognition.

My car seemed to transfer the force to total the car in front of me. The kids were screaming, and the whole place was immediately in a flurry of activity. There were tons of people there immediately to help, and the paramedics were there in maybe 3 minutes. They checked us out, and sent Mat to Celebration. Andrew and I followed in another ambulance about 3 hours later when he started to scream with abdomen pain. The 3 of us got full x-rays. We were sent home and told to follow up with the doc.

We thought everything beyond the whiplash was fine except for the major bruise on Mat's leg. He limped for a few days, but he seemed to be getting better. He had a check up, and the doc said Mat was healing. However, Lizzy was having back spasms. We are still following up with her at a pediatric orthopedic specialist, and I'm going for follow ups too.

Then this past Sunday, Mat's leg started really hurting again. By Tuesday, he couldn't walk, and he was going to get it checked out. He checked himself into the ER. He had an infection, and the report went from being there overnight for observation to being there for several days. He ended up having surgery, and by Thursday night, the night I asked you all to pray so heavily, the docs felt sure that Mat had MRSA. It seemed rather grave to be honest. There was tension in his room and the nurses and docs were very serious.

They ran further tests to see the extent of the infection, and we found out that Mat has a generic staph infection rather than MRSA. It's been drained, and they left a big hole in his leg so that the wound could heal inside out and continue to release the bad bacteria in his leg in the process.

Mat came home from the hospital today. We have a little bit of a road ahead of us. He has to have a nurse come twice a day, he can't walk (although he can get around a little with a walker - which we are giving him heck about), and he has lots of antibiotics and follow up doc visits in the few weeks to come. But he is alive!!!

God certainly has provided, and he knew this was going to happen before it went down. Mat walked out of his little car alive! God protected Andrew from being in the back of Mat's car during the accident. Amy is here helping us with everything especially the kids, and I'm still reeling at how God sent her in just the exactly right timing. Our friend have been so helpful and encouraging. I could go on and on about God's provision.

Keep praying! Mat can handle the pain of the injury, but it is horribly painful when the bandage has to be changed and packed. We have to make sure that we don't introduce any further germs to the wound, and we will have to go back and forth to doc appts for a little while. His spirits are up, and we are so excited to have him home! Mat's work is even sending us food via Mat's favorite chef!

We certainly don't understand whey we had to go through all this, but we hope that God receives all the glory. Just looking at the car Mat walked out of makes us praise Jesus!