Author: N3il5hona

5th of Jan, a day to celebrate our champion and my Hero’s birthday every year. Although today was not how we envisioned it to be less than a fortnight ago, it was still a great day.
After spending the night at the Ronald McDonald House I was up early and headed back to see Cory for his 15th Birthday, arriving at about 0640hrs I found both Cory and Shona sound asleep.
I sat there watching and waiting for them to awaken til around 0800hrs when the medical staff woke them. I can say that Cory was in a pretty sad mood, mostly from being woken I would guess.
After the medical staff had finished with him we drew back the curtain beside his bed to reveal a surprise that Merrin (one of the beautiful Nurses) had made on her break!!

As soon as that curtain came back his face instantly lit up with joy and that was the start of a great day!
We then were able to give Cory a birthday gift that he had really been wanting, but not before being interrupted by the second round of medical staff for the morning.

1030 rolls around and we are chatting away when “HAPPY BIRTHDAY CORY” is excitedly announced by Cory’s amazing Physio Nichola before blasting a party blower as she entered the room.
This was followed by amazing progress as Cory was able to move his left leg so much more that he had yesterday and even to the point where once I assisted him to get moving and maintained some weightlessness for his leg, he was able to raise it a substantial way off the bed! A major strain and effort for the champ, but such an achievement too!
Next goal is to get him sitting up on the edge of the bed, which we are aiming to start next Monday! Can’t wait!!
Nanna, Poppy, Aunty Sharna and our Princess Jeldi arrived just at the end of the session just in time to get more decorations up!

We had to then rush off to our first Family meeting where we were really introduced to our Spinal Rehab Team and we discussed a rough idea of what our short term future looks like. So some of you may have heard that we are looking at maybe 2 weeks here in PMH before being moved to FSH for 3months, it was cleared up today (thankfully) that we would not be changing hospitals and that we are most likely to be here at PMH for the next 10-12 weeks.
All while this was going on, one of Cory’s closest friends Cheyana and Legend Leon had arrived to spread some Birthday cheer!

What an awesome day with a total of 10 special visitors plus the and unfortunately or fortunately, which ever way you wish to look at it, we did not take so many photos with friends as we were too busy just enjoying the moments as life was intended.

We did get a few videos of the hilarious Captain Starlights as they performed a rap about wrapping as Cory unwrapped a gift from them.
He also recieved gifts from the Nursing Staff of Ward 5C and from LiveWire.
AMAZING

There was one person who he was most keen to see though and that was his lovely girlfriend Felicity. Thanks so much Felicity for being there for Cory and for us, your thoughtful presents and delightful presence today capped off the best Birthday possible today, Saved the best for last 🙂

Special thanks to the following people making a great 15th Birthday;

Jeldi
Nanna & Poppy
Gary and Felicity Mann
Aunty Sharna
Uncle Noel & Uncle Eli
Maddison, Chad and Maddi’s Mum
Leon & Cheyana
Lynette and Riley

and of course the amazing Staff of PMH, you guys absolutely rock!!!

There are many challenges we face ahead, there are many we face on a day to day basis and today was definitely not all beer and skittles. There was plenty of tears both the happy ones and the sad ones, but our Family, Extended and Friends plus the strength of the Community behind us with the hundreds of messages, will get Cory and us through this murky patch.

We are struggling with many things, some of which may seem trivial.

one of which is the desire to respond to every message and well wish, but we simply cannot do it, but we certainly do appreciate them and we would love for them to continue as they are very touching.

There is so much more I would love to write, but again it is 0100hrs (I’ve backdated the post to appear as the 5th….) and I really need to set this reclining chair from uncomfortable mode to almost comfortable mode and get some rest.

Much Love
The Crombies
#corycrombiecan

ps. I know I have forgotten so many people from today, with all the singing and well wishes from so many people, my deepest apologies 🙁

We had successfully extracted Cory from the track using full spinal precautions and then loaded him into the ambulance.
I will never forget the look Cory gave every time the Ambulance went over even the smallest of bumps, it is one which no parent wants to see on their childs face, one of absolute excruciating agony, but still he lay there with hardly a sound coming from him.
I was thankful that the Bunbury BMX Club is literally just around the corner from the hospital and in no time we arrived at the hospital.
Again more bumps as we unloaded him and pushed him into the emergency department where he was greeted promptly by a team of Medical Staff (Sorry I have forgotten most of your names)

Everything seems a bit of a blur at the moment as to what the process was, but I one thing I do remember was how long it seemed for the CT scan to be done, it probably was not that long, but it was the only time that we had left his side thus far.
Following confirmation that he had fractures and compression to some of his vertebrae, the medical staff alerted us that they were sending us to PMH via the RFDS. From memory we arrived at the Bunbury Airport at about 2300hrs and after Cory was transferred to the RFDS Gurney and given some medications to assist with pain relief for the journey to Perth, we finally took off.

Talk about a professional service, the RFDS crew were amazing (Again… sorry I’ve forgotten your names… Except for Pilot Ryan) we were only airborne for appr. 30 minutes before we touched down ever so smoothly at Jandakot airport where we were met by yet more amazing paramedics.
A short drive later at midnight we arrived at PMH ED met by so many staff it is not funny!

At this point it is fair to say that Cory was “Off His Face” making some hilarious statements and jokes and keeping all the medical staff laughing. While they made their observations and assessed his scans that had been sent through from Bunbury, they got him set up in a room while awaiting an MRI. At about 1200hrs on the 28^th Dec we finally made it into the MRI where they took some more detailed scans of his spin and also of his abdomen as the initial CT showed some “lines” on his pancreas. The MRI confirmed that his T12 had a fairly major fracture in it, but it also confirmed that his pancreas was all clear.
At Appr 1300hrs Cory had a neurologic assessment by his Physio Nichola to see the extent of his injuries pre-op and then was taken straight into theatre, where they fused his T10 all the way to his L1 to stabilise his spine and prevent further injury to his spinal cord.

The next 24hrs involved laying flat on his back in ICU on all sorts of monitors and controls to maintain his spinal integrity. Again the staff up there in ICU were absolutely amazing. A super big shout out to Naomi who was such a comfort to Cory throughout his first night.

After stabilisation of his blood pressure and the ICU team were happy that he was no longer in need of intensive care, Cory was moved to a Ward where again, surprise surprise we were met with lovely staff to care for him and us. I won’t go into all the details of his journey just now, but it was certainly a roller coaster ride and still is as we learn more about his condition and the steps we take as he improves.

Nichola and Elizabeth have been so amazing with his physio treatment, explaining everything that they do and just generally being super supportive as we learn how to look after his muscles until (hopefully) he regains his own control of them.

There are some unreal signs that he is going to make some good recovery, with him being able to activate his quad muscles, lift his knees slightly off the bed and sometimes (on & off) he can move his toes about 1mm, but while we remain very positive and confident that he will recover physically, the fact of the matter is that this may be all that he will ever be able to do.

So we rang in the New Year not quite like we thought that we would be, but we have pretty much had 4 really good days with only a few down times and as Cory has been weaned off the infusion drugs and onto the orals there has been a lot of adjustment for him to make.

That brings us pretty much to today, the 4^th January 2018 and after a couple of days of GWN trying to get to have a chat with us, Cory was at a point this morning where he wanted to talk to them, so Emily and Jack came along and interviewed him.
As always with these interviews, there is only a small amount of the actual interview that is aired due to time constraints, but I could not have been more proud of my little mate as he ran Emily through his journey thus far. He truly is a bloody champion.

Then the real exciting part of his day came straight after this…. 2 of his closest friends Chad and Maddison came into visit him. As soon as these two walked in through the door his whole face lit up, this is the brightest that we have seen him in a long time. They both came bearing birthday gifts for him, which was so touching for both Shona and I also.

Well, again it is pretty late and I really need more than a couple hours of sleep (who am I kidding….)

Much Love

The Crombies