I am not going to pull punches. We are in a battle. We are in a battle for Chris to regain function of his arms and legs. Through our faith, support of family and friends, skilled medical staff, and the determination of our son, he will walk again. We believe this.
~Terry Norton, CaringBridge, October 18, 2010
I KNEW Chris’s injury was severe even before the EMTs said they were taking him to Winneshiek Hospital. Deb and I just looked at each other in stunned silence because we didn’t know the town of Decorah, and we had no idea how to get to the hospital. It seemed easier to focus on the logistics than on our son being driven away in an ambulance.
We stumbled toward the car while the other players’ parents tried to tell us how to get to the hospital, but my mind wouldn’t focus. Everyone was staring at us. We felt like we were under a microscope as we got into the SUV while people packed our stuff and told us not to worry about anything we left behind. My mom, Alex, Deb, and I were in the car trying not to freak out and let our imaginations run wild.
We arrived at the hospital in Decorah, and a nurse led us back to where Chris lay on a stretcher, his uniform in tatters and his neck in a collar. We attempted to pump him up with meaningless phrases like we’re here, and everything’s going to be okay, even though we didn’t have a clue if that was true.
We were asked if we wanted Chris to go to Mayo in Rochester, Minnesota, or to La Crosse, another Mayo hospital in Wisconsin. We’d never been to either and didn’t know what to do. Winneshiek had called the neurological team at Mayo in Rochester as soon as they heard from the EMTs that they had a severe neck injury patient en route. Mayo instructed them to start a steroid drip to reduce the swelling and said he’d need surgery as soon as possible. Mayo didn’t have any helicopters available, so they called La Crosse, and one was en route even before we got there. Distance wise, Mayo and La Crosse were about the same, and the doctors at Winneshiek told us that the main facilities for Mayo were in Rochester. Armed with that information and little else, we chose Rochester.
The doctors and nurses at Winneshiek continued with sensation tests to see what feeling Chris had below the injury site, and prepared him for transport. He needed to get into surgery as soon as possible. They started a steroid drip and continued testing to make sure his breathing and vitals were okay.
With his head in a collar, tubes running into him for the IV steroid drip, and his uniform shredded, Chris opened his eyes and asked who won the Iowa-Michigan game.
Like his dad, Chris was a die-hard Hawkeye fan, and his seemingly routine question and our discussion of the game eased the tension as we waited for the helicopter to arrive.
Then he looked at me with tears in his eyes. “Will I ever walk again?”
With a slab of granite sitting squarely on my chest, I muttered something inane like, “You’re in good hands,” or “Let the doctors do their job.”
I had to hold myself together, not only for my son, but also for the rest of the family who kept watching me for signs of a crack. If I lost faith, the whole family would take a turn down a very dark road. I wasn’t willing to go that route, even though every cell of my body screamed to let my worst fears take over.
Chris kept closing his eyes.
“You don’t have to sleep,” Alex said.
His eyelids fluttered open before closing once again. “I don’t want to know what’s going on.”
The defeated sound of his voice nearly crumbled my resolve. I never thought anything could happen to my kids, or me, or my family. The idea of a spinal cord injury never crossed my mind. I’d always imagined a career-ending football injury as something like a badly torn ACL or a broken bone, but a spinal cord injury never even blipped on my radar.
If Chris had suffered a career-ending torn ACL, I’d have thought that was a big deal. Or if Chris had broken his leg, I could hear myself say, “Oh my gosh, he’s only a freshman and he broke his leg! He’s going to miss half the season.” My perspective had suddenly changed.
Deb was kind of shutting down at that point. Her eyes were glazed with shock and glittered with unshed tears. The whole experience—from the ambulance, to the frantic drive to the hospital, to the antiseptic smell of the facility—was very upsetting. I could tell she tried not to think about what happened, and she tried not to focus on what it might mean for our son’s future. We attempted to encourage each other with a touch here or a reassuring nod there, but to be honest, we were both faking it for each other and for Chris. We teetered on the edge of something ugly, and we knew if one of us fell down the dark pit of despair, the other would surely follow. We tried to stay positive, but the sight of Chris on the table, hooked up to machines with his uniform cut off was almost too much to bear.
It was a relief to have Alex there. In the midst of her nursing program, she was concerned about her brother, but her rational, even-keel approach to the situation helped to steady us all. My mom was probably one of the strongest Christian women I’d ever known. She’d experienced a ton of adversity in her life, and yet was always full of joy. Her presence was another steadying force, a rock to lean on when things seemed so bleak.
They wouldn’t let any of us ride in the helicopter. There was just room for Chris, the pilot, and the EMTs. After Chris was loaded onto the chopper and we watched it rise into the air, I attempted to drive to Mayo. Word of Chris’s injury had spread. The game had been podcast over the computer, and some Bondurant parents had seen it and knew what had happened. Once people knew that Chris was injured and had been taken by ambulance to the hospital, people began calling each other, and our phones started blowing up.
“The news of Chris’s injury is one of those moments that people from Bondurant and Central Iowa will never forget.”
~ Chad Carlson, Principal and Former Boys’ Basketball Coach, Bondurant-Farrar Community Schools
Katie hadn’t come to the game with us; she was at a birthday party, and we couldn’t get hold of her. We also had dogs and a cat at home, and we weren’t going to be there to care for any of them after the game. I was scared and concerned, and in between incoming calls, I contacted individuals with the news. I told them Chris had a severe neck injury, that we were on our way to Rochester for surgery, and that we needed their prayers. That was all we knew at the time. Spreading the word and asking for prayers was my way of doing something.
Chris’s fate was in God’s hands and that of his doctors. But I knew the power of prayer, I believed in the power of prayer, and I set to work. I was upset, on the verge of tears, and I couldn’t drive. The more I talked about Chris’s injury and expressed the uncertainty of our plans, the less I was able to concentrate on our route.
I finally pulled over. It was best for Alex to drive the car so Deb and I could notify people and deal with the phone calls. We frantically tried to track Katie down because she wasn’t answering her phone, and we were worried about how she was going to find out about her brother. Was she going to hear about his injury from someone else and feel scared to death? Her whole family was headed to Rochester, Minnesota, and she was in Bondurant. She was going to feel isolated, and she’d want to be with us. Deb got a hold of our minister, and he and one of our really close friends, Tina Hargis, went to the birthday party and got Katie. They arrived at the hospital hours later.
The drive seemed to take forever. I just kept wondering if it was real and hoping when we got to Mayo the doctors would tell us his injury wasn’t as bad as they thought. I kept imagining the doctor telling us he’d regained movement on the helicopter ride and that he’d be released very soon. We were still in that dreamy shock-like state.
We’d never set foot in Rochester and didn’t realize there were three Mayo hospitals. Winneshiek had given us directions, but when we got to Rochester, the highway signs confused us. Our instructions would have led to the hospital, but we saw a Mayo exit and panicked. We followed the signs and ended up driving around downtown, stressed and taking it out on each other. We finally found St. Mary’s Hospital, pulled into the parking area, and tried to find the emergency entrance. A tall man with a bright blue Luther sweatshirt waved through a window.
Was he waving at us? We went from the football field, to the hospital in Decorah, and directly on to Rochester. How in the world was someone from Luther waving at us and pointing to a door? We parked the SUV and hustled inside. The man with the Luther sweatshirt came up to us and introduced himself as Keith. He’d already inquired about Chris’s status, knew the room Chris was in, the floor he was on, and showed us how to find him. Deb and I stood in the lobby dumbfounded. Who was this guy, and how did he get here?
Keith, a Luther alumnus from Rochester, Minnesota, had recently lost his wife to cancer, and the Luther/Central game was the first game he’d attended in three or four years. Keith had a feeling Chris was going to end up at Mayo, so he went straight to the hospital so he’d be available to help. We were simply stunned. He led us through the hospital maze to the right set of elevators and walked us to the neurological trauma ICU and directly to Chris. Meeting Keith was like encountering an angel.
“I saw them coming through the door. A man and woman wearing Luther apparel each with that look of a thousand years of burden on their face.”
~ Keith Northway, Luther College Alumni
We visited briefly with Chris, then the surgeon pulled the four of us—Deb, Alex, my mom, and me—into a small conference room where we all sat. The metallic taste of terror coated my throat and pooled in my belly. We were going to get answers to questions I’d been too afraid to ask.
The doctor looked at us with cool, expressionless eyes and told us our son suffered a severe spinal cord injury between the C3 and C4 vertebrae. Based on the field assessment, the X-rays, and his lack of sensation below the injury site, Chris most likely severed his spinal cord causing a complete injury. As the doctor droned on explaining the difference between a complete and incomplete injury in a monotone voice, as if explaining the difference between synthetic and regular motor oil, my mind seemed to freeze, rejecting the absorption of incoming data. Only broken bits of phrases played on a loop in my brain: broken neck, severed spinal cord, no recovery below the injury site.
Just when my brain began to reengage at the mention of an incomplete injury and the possibility of an un-severed cord and nerve damage from swelling around the injury site, I heard the one thing I never wanted to hear. When considering the extent of his injury, the doctor estimated Chris had less than a 3 percent chance of ever having movement below the neck.
The doctor couldn’t have pained me more if he’d pulled out his scalpel, cut the skin along my torso, cracked my ribs wide open, and ripped the beating heart from my chest. Without thought, without even a glance at my family, I fell forward onto my knees and started sobbing. Whimpers tore from my lips as my body shook with grief. Three percent chance? Three percent chance? How could that be? How could the doctor be talking about my son? About Chris? Hours ago he had everything going for him, and now he only had a 3 percent chance of ever moving?
Livid with the doctor for sucking all the wind out of my sails, I somehow reined in the anger that threatened to explode at his blunt and meticulous prognosis. I’d rather Chris have a great surgeon who didn’t have the best bedside manner than a doctor with a great bedside manner and lesser skills as a surgeon. And, really, how could he have couched his diagnosis or phrased it in a way that made it palatable?
The news flattened Deb; she began to weep, unable to hold her emotions in check. Everything we’d feared from the instant Chris went down hit us like a shot blast to the gut. And my mom, the strongest woman I knew, had tears streaming down her face. That moment was a big turning point in my faith. I could almost hear God whisper, Do you trust me?
I always believed God existed. I believed Jesus Christ walked the earth. I believed everything I’d ever learned from the Bible. But did I really trust? Could I put all of my faith in Jesus Christ knowing I had no control over the outcome? It was easy to say I believed all those things, but I’d never been put in a position where I had to trust that he was with me at all times regardless of the circumstances. It was easy to trust when nothing in my life had ever gone so terribly wrong. I knelt in front of my family and the man who’d given me the worst news of my life because I had to decide right then. Did I trust God or not?
I’m going to trust God, I’m going to trust there will be a positive outcome. Suddenly, I went from feeling like somebody had hit me with a baseball bat to being wrapped in a blanket of calm. I’d given everything over to God, and he had my back.
I got up, dried my tears, and with Jesus and my family by my side, faced the future head on.